Nerdy Science Blog

A new species of leech is discovered at the remote Peruvian Amazon.  The new species is given the name Tyrannobdella rex or tyrant leech king.  The new tyrant leech king is first discovered from the nose of a girl in central Chanchamayo Province, Peru in 2007.  It belongs to a group of leeches that only suck on mammalian mucus membrane.  The leech king can grow up to 3 inches long and has large teeth to attack mammals’ orifices, including eyes, urethras, rectums and vaginas.  Ironically, the king has small penis according to Mark Siddal, curator of invertebrate zoology at the American Museum of Natural History in New York City.

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Paleontologists found a fossil of 10 million-year-old bird in Ocucaje, in the Ica region of Peru’s southern coast.  The uncovered fossil was a bird head, which is the most complete cranium ever found for the Pelagornithidae family.  However the remains were hard to find.  The bird had teeth at the tip of beak which could be used for preying, and also it had large wings.  It was estimated such bird could have a wingspan up to 19.7 feet and fed mostly on fish from Pacific Ocean.  The bird extinct 2.5 million year ago due to climate change.  The 15.7 inches fossil will be displayed in the Peru’s Natural History Museum in Lima on this Saturday.

The dig site is a desert coast and the arid climate had preserved many fossils.  The paleontologists also found remains of whales, sharks and turtles.

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