A New Bloodsucking Leech Species Found Hiding Outside Washington, D.C.

Anna Phillips, the curator of parasitic worms at the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History in Washington, D.C., led the team that recently discovered Macrobdella mimicus in almost their own backyard.

Uncovered in the swamps of Charles County in Maryland, it's the first species of medicinal leech discovered in North America since 1975, Phillips says.