Gastrostomobdellidae
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| Richardson , 1971 |
Gastrostomobdellidae is the name of a family of predatory on land or amphibious living leeches in the order of Schlundegel that in Southeast Asia are common and especially earthworms eat.
features
The flukes of the Gastrostomobdellidae family, often bright red in color, usually have a cylindrical body shape reminiscent of earthworms. The long, muscular, straight and tubular pharynx has no jaw-like or tooth-like structures. The intestinal section, which is homologous to the blood-sucking stomach (goiter), is tubular and has no blind sacs, with the exception of a pair of very small post caeca in the 19th segment, in line with the predatory lifestyle. The leeches have an abdominal opening (gastropore) on the abdomen, which opens into or next to the clitellum from the intestinal canal and whose function has not yet been clarified. The leeches have 16 pairs of nephridia outlets . The hermaphrodite animals have numerous testes , simple sperm ducts and a small, non-muscular male atrium. The ovaries are elongated, tubular, or baggy. The number of ringlets between the male and female genitals varies depending on the species and can be, for example, 9 ( Gastrostomobdella vagabunda ) or just 6 to 7 ( Gastrostomobdella monticola ).
Distribution, habitat and way of life
The representatives of the Gastrostomobdellidae are common in the Indomalayic region from India to Malaysia and Indonesia . They live amphibiously or as rural dwellers on the floor of forests . The leeches predatory feed on other annelid worms , especially earthworms . The prey is swallowed whole using the muscular pharynx.
Among the most striking, largest, and therefore known species of the genus Gastrostomobdella include up to 10 cm long Gastrostomobdella monticola that in the Malaysian provinces of Sarawak and Sabah on the island of Borneo at the bottom of the mountain forests, among others, on the slopes of the mountains Murud and Poi is found and also captured large earthworms. Another type is the on the Malay Peninsula spread Gastrostomobdella vagabunda . The genus Gastrostomobdella is also represented on Sumatra .
Reproductive cycle
Like all leeches, the Gastrostomobdellidae are hermaphrodites that mate as throat leeches through mutual injection of pseudopermatophores ( hypodermic insemination ). The clitellum forms an egg cocoon made of mucus in which the mother lays the fertilized eggs. Developed little leeches hatch from these.
Systematics
John Percy Moore chose 1929 for his description of the genus Gastrostomobdella this name meaning "belly mouth leeches" ( ancient Greek γαστήρ Gaster "belly, stomach," Greek στόμα stoma "mouth" and Greek βδέλλα bdélla " leeches "), as this Genus counting leeches have a gastropore ("belly opening": πόρος "opening") on the belly. There are in the subordination of Schlundegel least four species of leeches with Gastro pores that are located in some back and other belly: Trematobdella ( ancient Greek τρῆμα "opening"), Foraminobdella ( Latin foramen , "opening") Acrabdella ( ancient Greek ἄκρα "Tip"), gastrostomobdella . The monotypical genus Kumabdella, established by Laurence R. Richardson in 1971 with the only species Kumabdella octonaria alias Orobdella octonaria , which is common in Japan , can be counted among these four, although Roy T. Sawyer and Takafumi Nakano, among others, deny its status as a genus.
The genera with gastropores were summarized in 1913 by the Swedish zoologist Ludvig Johansson to form the family Trematobdellidae, although apart from the gastropore they have little in common. Richardson limited so in 1971 in his description of the Gastrostomobdellidae family this to the two genera Gastrostomobdella and Kumabdella where the Gastropore is on the belly, while the genera with Gastro pores on the back - Trematobdella , Foraminobdella and Acrabdella continue to - Erpobdellidae counted. In rejecting the genus Kumabdella to counts mono generic family Gastrostomobdellidae only the type genus Gastrostomobdella .
literature
- John Percy Moore (1929): Leeches from Borneo with descriptions of new species. Proceeding of the academy of natural sciences of Philadelphia 81, pp. 267-295.
- Laurence R. Richardson (1971): Gastrostomobdellidae fam. nov. Bulletin of the National Science Museum Tokyo, 14 (4), pp. 585-602.
- Sybil P. Parker: Synopsis and Classification of Living Organisms , Volume 2. McGraw-Hill, New York 1982. p. 50.
- Roy T. Sawyer: Leech Biology and Behavior. Clarendon Press. Oxford 1986. pp. 746-751, Family: Gastrostomobdellidae Richardson, 1971 .
- Takafumi Nakano: Systematic Revision of the Monotypic Family Orobdellidae (Hirudinida: Arhynchobdellida: Erpobdelliformes), with Molecular Phylogenetic Analyzes of the Known Orobdellid Species. Dissertation, Kyoto University, 2013.