A kind of predation

[juraj]

Hard to say which one attacked first:

 

[paris]

yeah but you can certainly tell who won!

 

[TJ]

I've never seen anything like it before, with the exception of cannibalistic larvae

Is the loser being bitten or swallowed there?
Is it dead or alive?
Are they crested newts or alpines?

 

[juraj]

The loser is being sucked out there.
It`s dead alpine female attacked by very vital and happy leech. She was almost completely sucked out. Or alpine female wanted to have a great dinner and then...

 

[kim]

Hummm... something doesnt look right on that picture.. the newt looks like its dead and is being eaten by the slug.. Am I right?

 

[TJ]

That's truly one of the most amazing (and disturbing!) things I've ever seen in the newt and sal world.

At first I thought it was a newt swallowing another newt...

 

[kim]

Humm... theres a dealay on me seeing posts.. But anyway.. poor looser! Would have been interesting to see tho... not that i would want to see a newt killed or anything

 

[benjamin]

Was that your pet that you put with the leech?!?! To me that seems like a pretty sick thing to do to your pet. Or was this in the wild?

 

[jeff]

Based on the background, I'd say he stumbled upon this in the wild.

 

[justin]

someones got a sick mind sort it out

 

[juraj]

I found it in the wild don`t worry guys

. I was pretty surprised because I`ve never seen this before and thought that would be interesting to share it.

 

[ingo]

A really interesting observation...
Does anybody know, if Newts can handle smaller leeches as a prey?

 

[ralf]

Hello Juraj,
I think you cleared this up for everybody now. Quite a rare incident to stumble upon. Thanks for sharing, although this is a gruesome sight. However, might also help to prevent disaster from anybody trying to feed leeches to her/his pet newts.

You seem to spend an awful lot of time out in the Danube floodplain. You must have webbed feet by now.

(Message edited by ralf on May 17, 2005)

 

[juraj]

I still havn`t but long walks on fresh air is a good prevention from any kind of mind sickness.

 

[TJ]

Love your pics, Jorge.

This one, while morbid, shows really quite an amazing scene and you should really have it used, say in a book about amphibians.

 

[paris]

juraj,
just for the record, do you know what sort of leech that is?

 

[juraj]

I`m not sure but most probably it is Haemopis sanguisuga.