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The price of leeches varied between one penny and threepence halfpenny each. In 1832 leeches accounted for 4.4% of the total hospital expenditure. The hospital maintained an aquarium for leeches until the 1930s. [15] The use of leeches began to become less widespread towards the end of the 19th century. [5]
Leeches are segmented parasitic or predatory worms that comprise the subclass Hirudinea within the phylum Annelida. They are closely related to the oligochaetes , which include the earthworm , and like them have soft, muscular segmented bodies that can lengthen and contract.
Hirudo is a genus of leeches of the family Hirudinidae. It was described by Carl Linnaeus in his landmark 1758 10th edition of Systema Naturae. [2] The two well-accepted species within the genus are: [3] Hirudo medicinalis Linnaeus, 1758; Hirudo nipponia Whitman, 1886
"Jawed leeches" - termed "Gnathobdellae" or "Gnathobdellida" - are exclusively found among the Hirudiniformes, but the order contains a number of jawless families as well. . The jawed, toothed forms make up the aquatic Hirudidae and the terrestrial Haemadipsidae and Xerobdellidae (sometimes included in the preceding but worthy of recognition as an independent fami
During a blood meal, a leech rhythmically contracts its muscles to draw blood from a host animal into the crop for storage. It can consume over five times its own weight in blood in one feeding. Once satiated, a leech detaches from its host. Hirudo verbana uses anticoagulants when it feeds, so its bite wounds continue bleeding for some time ...
Hirudinea, whose name means "leech-shaped" and whose best known members are leeches. [8] Marine species are mostly blood-sucking parasites, mainly on fish, while most freshwater species are predators. [13] They have suckers at both ends of their bodies, and use these to move rather like inchworms. [15]
Commonly known as jawed land leeches, these annelids are known from subtropical and tropical regions around the Indian and Pacific Ocean. [1] Well-known Haemadipsidae are for example the Indian Leech ( Haemadipsa sylvestris ) and the yamabiru or Japanese Mountain Leech ( Haemadipsa zeylanica ).
Piscicola geometra is a species of leech in the family Piscicolidae. It is an external parasite of marine, brackish and freshwater fishes. It was first described as Hirudo geometra by the Swedish naturalist Carl Linnaeus in his Systema Naturae in 1758. [1]