The first leeches have been born as part of a unique trial to replenish the supply of the medicinal species.

Over the past month, 20 leeches have been hatched at a specially designed facility in Kingussie in the Scottish Highlands.

In 2023, a team captured and bred a group of the rare breed of medicinal leeches, found in only three sites across Scotland.

Britain’s largest leech species used to be much more prevalent in Scotland but their numbers have plummeted due to habitat loss, pollution, and centuries of humans farming them for use in medicine, in the mistaken belief that bloodletting could cure any number of ailments.

They are now only known to be found in three lochs in Scotland: in Argyll, Islay and Dumfries and Galloway.