Nose gel

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Nose gel
A, B: Nose gel (Dinobdella ferox), C, D: Myxobdella annandalei [1]

A, B: Nose gel ( Dinobdella ferox ), C, D:  Myxobdella annandalei

Systematics
Subclass : Bristle flukes (Euhirudinea)
Order : Trunkless leeches (Arhynchobdellida)
Subordination : Pine rule (Hirudiniformes)
Family : Praobdellidae
Genre : Dinobdella
Type : Nose gel
Scientific name
Dinobdella ferox
( Blanchard , 1896)

The Nasenegel ( Dinobdella ferox ) is a kind in freshwater living very large leeches of the order Kieferegel , who as endoparasite in the airways in mammals as well as human blood drawn. It is common in large parts of Asia .

features

The nasal leech is the largest species of leech in India and can grow to over 20 cm in a cattle nose. A preserved specimen was 15.8 cm long - in the 12th to 14th segment - up to 2.2 cm wide and up to 7 mm thick, in the throat area 4.5 mm wide and 2.5 mm thick, at the male sex orifice 1.3 cm wide and 4.5 mm thick with the male sex orifice 2.1 cm from the front end and the rear suction cup being 2.25 cm in diameter. While the front end of the leech is slender and the head small, the rear suction cup can be large and wider than the widest part of the rest of the body, far back. The skin of the leech is uniformly dark green without any markings. Of the externally not recognizable segments, 16 segments in the middle section of the body each comprise 5 outer ringlets, the furrows of which are uniformly deep.

The eyes of the leech, which sit in five pairs of eyes in the head area, are small and therefore difficult to see. The jaws are, as generally in the genus Dinobdella, small, soft, smooth, toothless and without papillae, so that they can only bite wounds on the mucous membranes and not in the fur. As with the related species, the storage stomach (goiter) has two pairs of well-developed, long and thin blind sacs per segment.

The sexual organs of the hermaphrodite animals only develop when the adult leeches have left the host and live in fresh water. The male atrium is strongly club-shaped, the prostate massive and the ejaculation duct without an enlarged globe. The tubular vagina is very long and slender, and the albumin gland occupies the entire length of the common fallopian tube.

Distribution, habitat and way of life

The nose leech is widespread in stagnant inland waterways such as springs, ponds and swamps in India , Sri Lanka , Myanmar , Thailand and China . It seems to be absent in arid areas, but is very common in areas with heavy seasonal rain, such as in Sri Lanka, Manipur , Darjeeling and parts of Punjab , Uttar Pradesh , in the Himalayas (for example in Naini Valley ) and in Thailand. In Sri Lanka it is particularly common in the lowlands, but occurs in Darjeeling up to 1700 meters and in Mukteshwar ( Uttarakhand ) up to 2500 meters above sea level. In addition to the occasional occurrence in the nasal cavities of humans, it affects the nasal cavities of a wide variety of mammals, such as yak , water buffalo , domestic cattle , domestic horses , domestic dogs , macaques and deer , which are weakened by constant blood loss and can die as a result of severe infestation.

Life cycle

Dinobdella ferox is like all clitellata a hermaphrodite . Before the sexual organs can mature, the animals have to leave their host. The mating, in which two leeches mate each other, takes place in a body of water. With the help of the clitellum, both partners form a cocoon and lay their eggs in it. Finished little leeches hatch out of the cocoon, waiting for the opportunity for a thirsty mammal to come and dip its nose into the water to become the host of this parasite.

Systematics

The French zoologist Raphaël Blanchard first described the leech suckling in bovine noses in 1896 and placed it in the genus Whitmania established by him in 1888 , named after the American zoologist Charles Otis Whitman , while the Latin epithet ferox means "unrestrained, unrestrained". In 1927 John Percy Moore chose the name Dinobdella "Terrible leech" ( ancient Greek δεινός deinós "terrible, terrible" and βδέλλα bdélla " leech ") when describing the genus .

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Anna J. Phillips, Renzo Arauco-Brown and a .: Tyrannobdella rex N. Gen. N. Sp. And the Evolutionary Origins of Mucosal Leech Infestations. In: PLoS ONE. 5, 2010, p. E10057, doi : 10.1371 / journal.pone.0010057 .