It also remains fertile over a period of years,unlike most other leech species. medicinalis breeds once during an annual season that spans June through August.
medicinalis has several pairs of testes and one pair of ovaries as well as a thickening of the body ring, known as a clitellum, which is visible during the breeding season (Grzimek, 1974). In addition, the medicinal leech has five pairs of eyes located on its front end. The anterior sucker surrounds the oral opening where the teeth for incison are located. All members bear a posterior and anterior disk-shaped sucker. The dorsal side is dark brown to black, bearing six longitudinal, reddish or brown stripes, and the ventral surface is speckled. The medicinal leech has a cylindrical, dorsoventrally flattened body divided into thirty-three or thirty-four segments. medicinalis would be a small pond with a muddy bottom edged with reeds and in which frogs are at least seasonally abundant (Sawyer, 1986). The medicinal leech is amphibious, needing both land and water, and resides exclusively in fresh water. Once a group is selected, the blue arrow will then open the family level sub-menu.The range extends through parts of western and southern Europe to the Ural mountains and the countries bordering the northeastern Mediterranean (Sawyer, 1986). The galleries below lead you to information pages for every species recorded on NatureSpot. Freshwater Leeches of Britain and Ireland. Freshwater Biological Association Hirudidae Like earthworms, they are hermaphrodites with a clitellum or saddle in which egg capsules are produced.Įlliott, J.M. A few live in terrestrial or marine environments, and a few are predatory. Hirudin is secreted to prevent blood clotting, and this has given rise to medicinal uses, past and present. Most live in freshwater and are parasitic species, with suckers at both ends of their bodies used to attach to a host before piercing the skin. Recent sources class them as Clitellata, in the sub-class Hirudinea. The Phylum include many parasites of vertebrates, such as tapeworms and flukes, but also free-living flatworms that are found in the soil, leaf litter and water. Oxygen and nutrients pass into their flattened bodies by diffusion. Unlike other 'worms' their digestive system has only one opening. Platyhelminthes or flatworms are simple organisms that lack specialised circulatory or respiratory systems. They are found from the poles to the tropics, and from mountain-tops to the deep ocean floor. The Phylum includes internal parasites of vertebrates ('r oundworms') and invertebrates, animal pathogens, plant gall-causers and plant pathogens (' eelworms'), but also many species that live in soil, the sea and fresh waters. Nematodes have adapted to nearly every ecosystem in the planet and are abundant, but despite this are rarely recorded. It includes earthworms, blackworms, leechesand the marine ragworms. Many are hermaphrodite, with both male and female sex organs. Classification is complicated, and frequently revised or updated, and identification to species-level is usually very difficult.Īnnelids or segmented worms - as the name suggests, these species have their body divided into segments. This includes species in several unrelated Phyla or major divisions of animal life. 'Worms' has no specific scientific meaning, but in common speech it covers the groups of animals that have no legs.
Leicestershire Urban Verge Wildlife Project.Leicestershire and Rutland Badger Group.Leicestershire & Rutland Swift Partnership.
Natural History Section, Leicester Literary & Philosophical Society.Market Bosworth & District Natural History Society.Leicestershire and Rutland Mammal Group.Leicestershire & Rutland Moth Recorders.Leicestershire Amphibian & Reptile Network.Leicestershire & Rutland Records Centre.Leicestershire & Rutland Entomological Society.Riverflies: Mayflies, Caddisflies & Stoneflies.
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