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Project Noah Nature School
A lake worm, leech or blood sucker of some kind found on a lily pad on Lake Emma near the observation dock in the park. **Are these technically even Arthropods?
Fresh water lakes, streams and creeks
Spotted on Aug 29, 2012
Submitted on Sep 17, 2012
2 Comments
ForestDragon-Love you name, btw; Thank you! No, I don't. I probably should have tried rolling it over or something but it was far enough off the dock I couldn't reach it...plus I try to not touch whenever possible for fear of hurting creatures in any way. I have seen them before on lily pads in this area so I'll have to look again this summer and see if I can get more/better images of them. I've never seen more than one or two at a time but birds do frequently use the dock to hunt from so either one is a possibility. Thank you for taking the time to help me id it! :-)
Hi Janelle, I just ran across this interesting spotting. This is an arthropod larva of some sort. It has a head and front legs that I can see in your pictures. Leeches have neither legs nor heads(and they would be put in the "Other" category for future reference).
Possibly a potential predator dropped it there or it walked across the water plants. I am still searching to find out what it is beyond that.
Do you have any other views of this larva?