__NOTOC__ Haemadipsidae (From Greek "haima" and "dipsa" ("blood" and "thirst", respectively)) are a

family Family (from la, familia) is a Social group, group of people related either by consanguinity (by recognized birth) or Affinity (law), affinity (by marriage or other relationship). The purpose of the family is to maintain the well-being of its ...

of jawed leeches. They are a

monophyletic In cladistics for a group of organisms, monophyly is the condition of being a clade—that is, a group of taxa composed only of a common ancestor (or more precisely an ancestral population) and all of its lineal descendants. Monophyletic gro ...

group of hirudiniform proboscisless leeches. These leeches have five pairs of eyes, with the last two separated by two eyeless segments. The family is

monotypic In biology, a monotypic taxon is a taxonomic group (taxon) that contains only one immediately subordinate taxon. A monotypic species is one that does not include subspecies or smaller, infraspecific taxa. In the case of genera, the term "unispec ...

, containing only the

subfamily In biological classification, a subfamily (Latin: ', plural ') is an auxiliary (intermediate) taxonomic rank, next below family but more inclusive than genus. Standard nomenclature rules end subfamily botanical names with "-oideae", and zoologi ...

Haemadipsinae, though as the family can apparently be divided into two or three distinct lineages, at least one of the proposed

splits A split (commonly referred to as splits or the splits) is a physical position in which the legs are in line with each other and extended in opposite directions. Splits are commonly performed in various athletic activities, including dance, figu ...

, while not a distinct family, might be a valid subfamily. Haemadipsids have two or three jaws. The two-jawed (duognathous) species were classified in a number of largely monotypic or non-monophyletic genera, so they were placed into a single monophyletic genus called ''Chtonobdella''. To increase grip, their caudal suckers have textured "friction" or "sucker" rays. Commonly known as jawed land leeches, these

annelid The annelids (Annelida , from Latin ', "little ring"), also known as the segmented worms, are a large phylum, with over 22,000 extant species including ragworms, earthworms, and leeches. The species exist in and have adapted to various ecol ...

s are known from

subtropical The subtropical zones or subtropics are geographical zone, geographical and Köppen climate classification, climate zones to the Northern Hemisphere, north and Southern Hemisphere, south of the tropics. Geographically part of the Geographical z ...

and

tropical The tropics are the regions of Earth surrounding the Equator. They are defined in latitude by the Tropic of Cancer in the Northern Hemisphere at N and the Tropic of Capricorn in the Southern Hemisphere at S. The tropics are also referred to ...

regions around the

Indian Indian or Indians may refer to: Peoples South Asia * Indian people, people of Indian nationality, or people who have an Indian ancestor ** Non-resident Indian, a citizen of India who has temporarily emigrated to another country * South Asia ...

and

Pacific Ocean The Pacific Ocean is the largest and deepest of Earth's five oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic Ocean in the north to the Southern Ocean (or, depending on definition, to Antarctica) in the south, and is bounded by the continen ...

. Well-known Haemadipsidae are for example the Indian Leech ('' Haemadipsa sylvestris'') and the ''yamabiru'' or Japanese Mountain Leech (''Haemadipsa zeylanica''). Members of the family feed on

blood Blood is a body fluid in the circulatory system of humans and other vertebrates that delivers necessary substances such as nutrients and oxygen to the cells, and transports metabolic waste products away from those same cells. Blood in the c ...

, except '' Idiobdella'' which has adapted to eat small

snail A snail is, in loose terms, a shelled gastropod. The name is most often applied to land snails, terrestrial pulmonate gastropod molluscs. However, the common name ''snail'' is also used for most of the members of the molluscan class Gastro ...

s. The other notable group of jawed blood-sucking leeches are the aquatic

Hirudinidae Hirudinidae is a family of leeches Leeches are segmented parasitic or predatory worms that comprise the subclass Hirudinea within the phylum Annelida. They are closely related to the oligochaetes, which include the earthworm, and lik ...

. The Xerobdellidae are sometimes included in the Haemadipsidae, but their status as a distinct family is supported by

sequence In mathematics, a sequence is an enumerated collection of objects in which repetitions are allowed and order matters. Like a set, it contains members (also called ''elements'', or ''terms''). The number of elements (possibly infinite) is calle ...

analysis of the

nuclear Nuclear may refer to: Physics Relating to the nucleus of the atom: * Nuclear engineering *Nuclear physics *Nuclear power *Nuclear reactor *Nuclear weapon *Nuclear medicine *Radiation therapy *Nuclear warfare Mathematics *Nuclear space *Nuclear ...

18S and 28S rDNA and

mitochondrial A mitochondrion (; ) is an organelle found in the cells of most Eukaryotes, such as animals, plants and fungi. Mitochondria have a double membrane structure and use aerobic respiration to generate adenosine triphosphate (ATP), which is use ...

COI

gene In biology, the word gene (from , ; "...Wilhelm Johannsen coined the word gene to describe the Mendelian units of heredity..." meaning ''generation'' or ''birth'' or ''gender'') can have several different meanings. The Mendelian gene is a ba ...

s as well as the

anatomy Anatomy () is the branch of biology concerned with the study of the structure of organisms and their parts. Anatomy is a branch of natural science that deals with the structural organization of living things. It is an old science, having its ...

of their

sexual organ A sex organ (or reproductive organ) is any part of an animal or plant that is involved in sexual reproduction. The reproductive organs together constitute the reproductive system. In animals, the testis in the male, and the ovary in the female, a ...

s and

nephridia The nephridium (plural ''nephridia'') is an invertebrate organ, found in pairs and performing a function similar to the vertebrate kidneys (which originated from the chordate nephridia). Nephridia remove metabolic wastes from an animal's body. Neph ...

; the latter are located at the belly rather than along the body sides as in the Haemadipsidae proper. All Xerobdellidae have three jaws. Haemadipsidae probably originated in the

Triassic The Triassic ( ) is a geologic period and system which spans 50.6 million years from the end of the Permian Period 251.902 million years ago ( Mya), to the beginning of the Jurassic Period 201.36 Mya. The Triassic is the first and shortest period ...

, more than 150

million years ago The abbreviation Myr, "million years", is a unit of a quantity of (i.e. ) years, or 31.556926 teraseconds. Usage Myr (million years) is in common use in fields such as Earth science and cosmology. Myr is also used with Mya (million years ago). ...

(mya). The diversification of the large

Asia Asia (, ) is one of the world's most notable geographical regions, which is either considered a continent in its own right or a subcontinent of Eurasia, which shares the continental landmass of Afro-Eurasia with Africa. Asia covers an area ...

n genus '' Haemadipsa'' probably did not take place until the

Eocene The Eocene ( ) Epoch is a geological epoch (geology), epoch that lasted from about 56 to 33.9 million years ago (mya). It is the second epoch of the Paleogene Period (geology), Period in the modern Cenozoic Era (geology), Era. The name ''Eocene' ...

, about 50 mya. Because members of this family are terrestrial, feed on vertebrate blood, and digest blood meals fairly slowly, they are used in invertebrate-derived environmental DNA ( eDNA) research. By extracting DNA from leech guts and sequencing vertebrate-specific genes, it is possible to identify which vertebrate the leech in question has fed upon, and therefore what animals are in the surrounding habitat. This methodology can be complementary to

camera trap A camera trap is a camera that is automatically triggered by a change in some activity in its vicinity, like presence of an animal or a human being. It is typically equipped with a motion sensor – usually a passive infrared (PIR) sensor ...

biodiversity surveys, which often undercount smaller animals.

Genera

# '' Chtonobdella'' Grube, 1866 # '' Diestecostoma'' Vaillant, 1890 # '' Domanibdella'' Richardson, 1974 # '' Geobdella'' de Blainville, 1827 # '' Haemadipsa'' Tennent, 1859 # '' Hygrobdella'' Caballero, 1940 # '' Idiobdella'' Harding, 1913 # '' Leiobdella'' Richardson, 1974 # '' Malagabdella'' Richardson, 1975 # '' Mesobdella'' Blanchard, 1893 # '' Neoterrabdella'' Richardson, 1969 # '' Nesophilaemon'' Nybelin, 1942 # '' Philaemon'' Lambert, 1898 # '' Planobdella'' Blanchard, 1894 # '' Sinospelaeobdella'' Liu, Huang & Liu, 2019 # '' Tritetrabdella'' Moore, 1928

Footnotes

References

* https://translate.google.com/#en/el/thirst, https://translate.google.com/#en/el/blood

External links

Japanese Mountain Leech video
on

YouTube YouTube is a global online video platform, online video sharing and social media, social media platform headquartered in San Bruno, California. It was launched on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim. It is owned by ...

{{Taxonbar, from=Q5638176 Leeches