The Kinabalu giant red leech is a large (≤30 cm long) bright orange-red coloured leech that is endemic to Mount Kinabalu, Borneo. Very little is known about this animal although it has been identified as Mimobdella buettikoferi Blanchard, 1897.
The Kinabalu leech is not hematophagic and feeds only on worms such as the Kinabalu giant earthworm, Pheretima darnleiensis. It lives in damp earth and leaves in cracks between the rocks and can be found in Kinabalu Park at an altitude of 2,500-3,000 m where the trail runs over a rocky outcrop near to the Mempening and Paka Cave shelters. It is usually seen during or after heavy downpours.
Famous quotes containing the words giant and/or red:
“The sense of death is most in apprehension,
And the poor beetle that we tread upon
In corporal sufferance finds a pang as great
As when a giant dies.”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)
“Swift blazing flag of the regiment,
Eagle with crest of red and gold,
These men were born to drill and die.
Point for them the virtue of slaughter,
Make plain to them the excellence of killing
And a field where a thousand corpses lie.”
—Stephen Crane (1871–1900)