Leeches.

[John Gryphon]

They annoy us but not perhaps as much as your ticks there in some UK parts.
Do you ever get bush/forest leeches in the UK?

'The age of vampirism': How the world fell in, then out, then in love again with leeches

The use of leeches is a blood-thirsty practice that's been helping us heal for millennia. Medicine has moved on since they were "used like aspirin" to treat conditions like obesity, but there is still a place for them today.

www.abc.net.au

 

[Koenig]

Never had them here in the UK. Still got the scars from being bitten by them from when I was in Borneo and they got infected. The ones there would go through loose weave clothing and latch onto you. If you had hairy legs you might get a little tickle as they wriggled around (and then you could spray them with bug DEET spray which seemed to kill then. If you missed them in your socks they’d gorge themselves on your blood and then burst like a blister from the movement of your ankle/foot. Horrible things….but they didn’t give you Lymes Disease.

 

[John Gryphon]

Horrible things…

Yes I know a bloke that had one up his "spout" it was there for some time and as his Bro said "you should a seen him have a pi$$ and the first long squirt was blood red.
I had one lodged inside an ear canal many years ago and that wasn't nice.