#4882 · 🪼 jellyfish, starfish, worms & co
Horse Leech
🇳🇱 Onechte paardenbloedzuiger ·Haemopis sanguisuga
🪼 Jellyfish, starfish, worms & co 📍 in the Netherlands
8 photos from iNaturalist (Creative Commons) · credits & licences
what is it?
Haemopis sanguisuga , commonly called the horse-leech , is a species of leech in the genus Haemopis .
base stats
Bars compare against all animals on log scales: up to 300,000 Dutch and 600,000 worldwide sightings (the most-seen species), 150 t (blue whale), 30 m and 400 years (Greenland shark).
fun facts
- Spotted 35 times in the Netherlands on iNaturalist: the #36 most seen of the jellyfish, starfish, worms & co in NL.
- 4,140 observations worldwide on iNaturalist.
- Scientifically named in 1758 (268 years ago).
fact sheet
- English
- Horse Leech
- Nederlands
- Onechte paardenbloedzuiger
- scientific name
- Haemopis sanguisuga
- class
- Clitellata
- order
- Arhynchobdellida
- family
- Haemopidae
- sightings in NL
- 35
- sightings in Europe
- 2,986
- sightings worldwide
- 4,140
- GBIF records in NL
- 1,521
- weight
- —
- length
- —
- lifespan
- —
- named
- 1758
Sources: iNaturalist taxon 468867, Wikidata Q1051334, GBIF 4411067, Wikipedia (EN), Wikipedia (NL). Intro text from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0).Updated 2026-10-24.