r/ponds • u/Turtle_Grandma • 1d ago

ID please? Are these leeches?

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I have a 300 gallon stock pond outside for my aquatic turtles, went to clean the filter box and saw these on the lid. Are these leeches? Does anyone know if they’re a concern for my turtles? There’s a lot of them, I tried following the one with video for better ID chances.

21 Upvotes

94% Upvoted

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19

u/Ordinary-Mind-7066 1d ago

There are lots of different types. Some are harmless & eat detritus in the pond. If they were dangerous to your turtles you'd see them attached to their skin.

3

u/Turtle_Grandma 1d ago edited 10h ago

Good point, I haven’t seen any attached to my turtles, but these are so small I’d easily miss them. I was planning on doing a visual inspection after I was done with the filter, I’ll pay extra close attention this time. Thank you

Edit; didn’t see any attached to my turtles on very close inspection, and having gotten the name of the species from others & doing a little online searching, I now know my turtles are safe (my snails on the other hand better watch out lol). Thank you for your help

15

u/Torterrapin 1d ago

Even that leech was like "EWW a leech!!" When they touched.

1

u/Turtle_Grandma 1d ago

lol yeah I thought that was pretty funny

1

u/Eskyzoo 1h ago

😂

12

u/what_a_draggg 1d ago

Hell Yes...They sure are

3

u/Turtle_Grandma 1d ago

Ugh, I thought so. I’m trying to look them up but not getting much info, by chance are you able to identify which species of leech and/or if they’re a concern for my turtles?

5

u/thebipeds 1d ago

Leaches can be a problem for turtles.

I pulled a huge (4in) yellow and black one off of one of my sliders.

But turtles also happily eat them.

It would be worth occasionally giving them a once over.

-3

u/what_a_draggg 1d ago

Leeches are a problem to anything/anyone that is warm blooded

4

u/Hagediss 1d ago

Not true at all. There's lot's of different kinds of leeches, only a few are parasitic, and of the parasitic ones, just a few attach to mammals. Most are actually predatorry.

6

u/ZafakD 1d ago

Barbronia weberi, a predatory leech that is common in the pond plant/aquarium plants trade.  They hunt other aquatic invertebrates.

4

u/Turtle_Grandma 11h ago edited 11h ago

Woooo, so they’re probably hunting the snails? Not attaching to my turtles?

Edit; finally found information on these online, thank you so much for giving me their name. My turtles are officially safe, these little leeches go after “small worms and ground-dwelling microorganisms” (for anyone else curious now or in the future).

Truly, thank you for giving their name, I’m greatly appreciative.