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The infamous blood suckers from Lacus Verbanus
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· January 2006
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Ulrich Kutschera
I-Cultiver, Inc., S.F.
Bay Area, Tracy, CA USA
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1
Lauterbornia
56: 1-4, D-86424 Dinkelscherben, 2006-03-15
The infamous blood suckers from
Lacus Verbanus
U. Kutschera
With 1 figure
Keywords
: Hirudo, Hirudinea, medicinal leeches, identification, endangerment, habitat
Schlagwörter
: Hirudo, Hirudinea, Medizinische Blutegel, Bestimmung, Gefährdung , Habitat
The European medicinal leech (
Hirudo medicinalis
L.) is an amphibious ectoparasite of verte
brates such as frogs and mammals. This threatened annelid has been used for blood-letting
(phlebotomy) since several centuries BC, a classical practice that is today employed by many
physicians to aid vascular surgery. In this short communication I will show that the leeches
that are currently used for scientific investigations and medical purposes throughout Europe
are erroneously attributed to the taxon
H. medicinalis
. They belong to a separate endangered
species,
H. verbana
Carena, 1820 that deserves the same conservation status as the famous me
dicinal leech.
1 Introduction
Two and a half centuries ago, Carl von Linné described the "worm"
Hirudo
medicinalis
L. (Linnaeus, 1758). This semiaquatic annelid once inhabited slow-
running and stagnant freshwater ecosystems throughout Europe. Today, it is
an endangered species that is included in the
Invertebrate Red Data Book
(Elliott
& Tullett 1992). In living specimens, the basic dorsal colour is brown to olive-
green, with one characteristic longitudinal pair of paramedian black stripes,
composed of drop-like spots. On the ventral side of the body, numerous dark-
pigmented spots are visible, a species-specific feature of this taxon.
Sixty years later, a second, more colourful thermophilic leech of similar size
was discovered in Italy and described in 1820 as a
nova species
(Carena, 1820). In
his Fig. 6 on plate 11 the author depicted a representative specimen in such
splendid detail that
H. verbana
(Locus typicus: Lago Maggiore, lat.
Lacus Verba
nus
) can be easily distinguished from
H. medicinalis
. The leeches from
Lacus
Verbanus
have a green-yellow basal colour with a red/orange-pigmented longi
tudinal reticulum on the dorsal side and no (or only very few) dark spots on
the ventral surface that is characterized by a pair of black marginal stripes.