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Blood-sucking leeches use their anterior suckers to connect to hosts for feeding. Once attached, they use a combination of mucus and suction to stay in place while they inject hirudin into the hosts' blood. In general, blood-feeding leeches are non host-specific, and do little harm to their host, dropping off after consuming a blood meal. Some ...
The leeches engorge themselves with blood before mating. One or two months after feeding, the leeches produce spongy cocoons, which are pale yellow and elliptical in shape. About another month later, the young, only 20 to 22 millimetres (0.79 to 0.87 in) long, emerge. [7]: 68 They take several years to become fully mature. [23]
Large adults can consume up to ten times their body weight in a single meal, with 5–15 mL being the average volume taken. [5] These leeches can live for up to a year between feedings. [6] Medicinal leeches are hermaphrodites that reproduce by sexual mating, laying eggs in clutches of up to 50 near (but not under) water, and in shaded, humid ...
Leeches are hermaphrodites, and mating may take place on or off the fish host, but in either case, the cocoon, usually containing a single egg, is deposited elsewhere, usually stuck to a stone or piece of vegetation, or even to the carapace of a crustacean. When the egg hatches, the juvenile leech has about a week to find a suitable fish host ...
The volume of blood consumed at any one time is much smaller than is typical for the European medicinal leech, but L. nilotica may stay in place for several weeks, feeding at intervals. [ 4 ] Limnatis nilotica is periodically reported as affecting humans and livestock, entering the host through the mouth, nose, and occasionally through the eye ...
The standard 80-mile hike from the town of Lukla to Base Camp and back is often attempted by athletes and adventure seekers over 10 to 12 days. It involves an elevation gain of more than 8,000 feet.
Unlike jawed leeches who use rows of teeth to puncture skin, Haementeria ghilianii uses a 10 centimetres (3.9 in) hypodermic needle-like proboscis to feed. Bites are kept open by the fibrinogenolytic (breaks up fibrinogen ) enzyme hementin , which is secreted from the proboscis' lumen; secretion is neurologically controlled.
Filial cannibalism occurs when an adult individual of a species consumes all or part of the young of its own species or immediate offspring.Filial cannibalism occurs in many species ranging from mammals to insects, and is especially prevalent in various types of fish species with males that engage in egg guardianship. [1]