Are they leeches?

[applestar]

I’ve been finding a lot of tiny “slugs” in my pond. At least I thought they were slugs — they look about the same color and size as the little baby slugs I find in my garden — NOT black or mud green/brown but flesh tone pink/tan and maybe 1/2 inch when stretched out. But mostly I see them in the humped middle position.

As soon as I put anything in the bottom of the pond and take it out, I find maybe half a dozen of these clinging. Over the last several times I worked in the pond, I have noted them but haven’t worried much — I figured as long as they are in the pond, they’re not messing with my garden. But last couple of times, I got them on my hand, and noticed that rather than being slimy/slippery and hard to get them off, it seemed more like it was hard to get them off because one end was clinging to my skin.

Today, I was just casually gathering up sunken leaves and debris from the shallow shelf along the edge of the pond, and ended up with 4-6 on my hand, and this time I was sure — they ARE stuck to my skin on one end and needed to be PULLED off. Not punctured skin as far as I could feel/tell, but yeah.

...so... leeches?

— I do always thoroughly wash my hands with soap after mucking around in the pond —
— (I guess I’ll always wear long Naplex gloves from now on....) —

[HoneyBerry]

Reading about this really creaped me out. I hope that you are careful.

[imafan26]

How did they get in the pond?

[applestar]

Birds? Frogs? I don’t know....

[HoneyBerry]

They might have been on plants and other materials used to build the pond. I think I recall that you recently built the pond.