Praobdella buettneri
| Praobdella buettneri | ||||||||||||
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| Scientific name | ||||||||||||
| Praobdella buettneri | ||||||||||||
| Blanchard , 1896 |
Praobdella buettneri (at Blanchard Praobdella büttneri ) is the name of a kind in the fresh water of live leeches from the order of Kieferegel , by several specimens from Togo is occupied by the end of the 19th century.
features
Praobdella buettneri becomes about 27 mm long and 8 mm wide. The average about 5 mm wide, circular rear suction cup is almost completely covered by the body and is traversed by stripes arranged radially on the lower surface. The head is clearly set off from the rest of the body by a constriction behind the 9th ring. Of the 5 pairs of eyes, the eyes of the first three pairs are significantly larger than those of the following two pairs, although the last pair can also be missing. The 17 paired exits of the nephridia are located at the rear edge of the respective last ring of the segment and not in the furrow between the segments. There are 9 ringlets between the sexual openings of the hermaphrodite animals, the male opening in the furrow between the 9th and 10th segment (i.e. behind the 28th ring) and the female opening between the 4th and 5th ring of the 11th segment ( i.e. behind the 37th ring of the animal). The large distance between the two genitals, which is not found in other leeches, characterizes the species of the genus Praobdella .
The three very small jaws of Praobdella buettneri are each set in two rows (distichodont) with about 10 to 12 tiny, irregular, bumpy teeth.
Distribution, habitat and way of life
Praobdella buettneri is common in West Africa. The type specimens come from Bismarckburg in the former German colony Togoland , today's Togo . Since its description in 1896, no further specimens have been collected or observed in the open, so that little is known about the biology of this leech. However, the species has systematic importance as a type of the genus Praobdella and the family Praobdellidae . Contrary to Blanchard's characterization as "mild leeches" (πραοβδέλλα), the other species of this family that have been better studied live, including the Praobdella radiata from South Africa described by John Percy Moore in 1958 or the species of the genus Dinobdella (δεινοβδέλλα, "terrible leech"), including the Nose leeches , in the mouth and nasal cavities of mammals as well as humans , where they lead to great discomfort and, in the case of severe infestation, sometimes also to the death of the infected animals.
Systematics
In 1896, the French zoologist Raphaël Blanchard described the genus at the same time as the species Praobdella büttneri , which he simply characterized as a leech with a body shape identical to the horse leech (genus Haemopis ), but with more distant genitals. He chose the generic name Praobdella , after its translation "milder, not cruel leech" ( ancient Greek πρᾶος prâos "gentle, mild, gracious" and βδέλλα bdélla " leech "), and named the species after the German naturalist Oskar Alexander Richard Büttner (1858– 1927).
Praobdella buettneri is one of four species of the genus Praobdella - together with the simultaneously described Praobdella guineensis Blanchard (1896) , Praobdella maculata ( Moore , 1939) and Praobdella radiata Moore, 1958 .
literature
- Raphaël Blanchard (1896): Hirudineen from Togoland. Archive for Natural History 62 (1), pp. 49–53.