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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A new report in the journal Nature unveils three of the first genomes from a vast, understudied swath of the animal kingdom that includes as many as one-quarter of Earth's marine species. By publishing the genomes of a leech, ...
Biotechnology
Dec 19, 2012
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(Phys.org)—Palaeobiologists from the University of Kansas studying samples taken from the mountains of Antarctica have found a ciliate fossil embedded in the wall of a fossilized leech cocoon which was itself embedded in ...
A new leech species with ferociously large teeth -- recently discovered in noses of children that swam in Peruvian rivers -- is providing insight into the evolutionary relationships among all the leeches that have an affinity ...
Archaeology
Apr 14, 2010
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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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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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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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43
(PhysOrg.com) -- Many meat-eating animals have unique ways of hunting down a meal using their senses. To find a tasty treat, bats use echolocation, snakes rely on infrared vision, and owls take advantage of the concave feathers ...
Plants & Animals
Nov 1, 2011
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