Blood-sucking leeches can help scientists map biodiversity
Scientists looking to measure the biodiversity of wild animals have added a surprising tool to their arsenal—blood-sucking leeches.
Scientists looking to measure the biodiversity of wild animals have added a surprising tool to their arsenal—blood-sucking leeches.
Plants & Animals
Apr 5, 2022
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In a new scientific investigation headed by the German Leibniz Institute for Zoo and Wildlife Research (Leibniz-IZW), water from African and Mongolian waterholes as well as bloodmeals from Southeast Asian leeches were assessed ...
Cell & Microbiology
Jun 28, 2021
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University of Central Florida researchers are homing in on the cause of a major disease of sea turtles, with some of their latest findings implicating saltwater leeches as a possible factor.
Ecology
Feb 18, 2021
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Today, we pull the veil back on the secret sex lives of leeches and how researchers at McMaster University and Fisheries and Oceans Canada are using that information to learn about endocrine disrupting chemicals. Leeches, ...
Environment
Jul 21, 2020
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The results of new research published this week in Scientific Reports reveal insights that may have profound effects on the use of medicinal leeches in hospital-based medicine.
Plants & Animals
Jun 18, 2020
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The frequent presence of leeches with a hidden lifestyle in the mantle cavity of freshwater mussels has been recorded since the second half of the 19th century. Yet this was, until now, regarded as an accidental phenomenon. ...
Plants & Animals
Nov 11, 2019
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Freshwater wetlands from Georgia to New York are home to a previously unrecognized species of medicinal leech, according to scientists at the Smithsonian's National Museum of National History. The new species, named Macrobdella ...
Plants & Animals
Aug 15, 2019
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144
A Canadian fault scientists thought was inactive may actually be capable of producing large-magnitude earthquakes, a new study finds. The results suggest residents of British Columbia on Canada's west coast have a higher ...
Earth Sciences
Oct 23, 2018
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Plastic surgery patients were getting infections with antibiotic resistant bacteria, and no one knew why. UConn microbiologists found the answer in a leech's gut. Their research, published today in mBio, provides proof that ...
Cell & Microbiology
Jul 24, 2018
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A broad survey conducted across southern Asia reinforces the idea that the mammal biodiversity of an area can be determined by looking at the DNA found in leeches' blood meals. The new study, led by researchers at the American ...
Ecology
Feb 27, 2018
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Leeches are segmented worms that belong to the phylum Annelida and comprise the subclass Hirudinea. Like other oligochaetes such as earthworms, leeches share a clitellum and are hermaphrodites. Nevertheless, they differ from other oligochaetes in significant ways. For example, leeches do not have bristles and the external segmentation of their bodies does not correspond with the internal segmentation of their organs. Their bodies are much more solid as the spaces in their coelom are dense with connective tissues. They also have two suckers, one at each end.
The majority of leeches live in freshwater environments, while some species can be found in terrestrial and marine environments, as well. Most leeches are hematophagous, as they are predominantly blood suckers that feed on blood from vertebrate and invertebrate animals.
Leeches, such as the Hirudo medicinalis, have been historically used in medicine to remove blood from patients. The practice of leeching can be traced to ancient India and Greece, and has continued well into the 18th and 19th centuries in both Europe and North America. In modern times, the practice of leeching is much rarer and has been replaced by other contemporary uses of leeches, such as the reattachment of body parts and reconstructive and plastic surgeries.
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