Search results
Results From The WOW.Com Content Network
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 ...
Glossiphoniidae are a family of freshwater proboscis-bearing leeches. These leeches are generally flattened, and have a poorly defined anterior sucker . Most suck the blood of freshwater vertebrates like amphibians , crocodilians and aquatic turtles , but some feed on invertebrates like oligochaetes and freshwater snails instead.
The family Glossiphoniidae contains one of the world's largest species of leech, the giant Amazon leech, which can grow up to 45 cm in length. [12] Many species show extended parental care, keeping eggs in nests or pouches and caring for and feeding the young. [2] [13] They feed on both vertebrate and invertebrate animals. [4]
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 ...
This leech is unique in that the adult attaches to the host but does not itself feed on it; instead, the young that it was brooding transfer to the host to take their first blood meal. [ 3 ] References
A handful of families have taken children as young as 2 years old to Mount Everest Base Camp in recent years. ... the whole family pulled leeches off their feet. The Matulis kids at Everest Base ...
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 ...