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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 ...
Leech embryogenesis is the process by which the embryo of the leech forms and develops. The embryonic development of the larva occurs as a series of stages. During stage 1, the first cleavage occurs, which gives rise to an AB and a CD blastomere, and is in the interphase of this cell division when a yolk-free cytoplasm called teloplasm is formed. [1]
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]
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 ...
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 ...
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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