Hirudo | |
---|---|
Hirudo medicinalis | |
Scientific classification | |
Domain: | Eukaryota |
Kingdom: | Animalia |
Phylum: | Annelida |
Clade: | Pleistoannelida |
Clade: | Sedentaria |
Class: | Clitellata |
Subclass: | Hirudinea |
Order: | Arhynchobdellida |
Family: | Hirudinidae |
Genus: | Hirudo Linnaeus, 1758 |
Type species | |
Hirudo medicinalis Linnaeus, 1758 |
Hirudo is a genus of leeches of the family Hirudinidae. It was described by Carl Linnaeus in his landmark 1758 10th edition of Systema Naturae.
The two well-accepted species within the genus are:
- Hirudo medicinalis Linnaeus, 1758
- Hirudo nipponia Whitman, 1886
Three other species, previously synonymized with H. medicinalis, were described in 2005 and are gaining acceptance:
Description
Species are typically exterior feeders. They have jaws that typically consist of about 60 teeth and do not possess papillae.
Distribution
Hirudo medicinalis: Britain and southern Norway to the southern Urals, probably as far as the Altai Mountains (the deciduous arboreal zone)
Hirudo verbana: Switzerland and Italy to Turkey and Uzbekistan (the Mediterranean and sub-boreal steppe zone)
Hirudo orientalis: Transcaucasian countries, Iran, and Central Asia (mountainous areas in the sub-boreal eremial zone)
Hirudo sulukii: Kara Lake of Adiyaman, Sülüklü Lake of Gaziantep and Segirkan wetland of Batman in Turkey
Hirudo troctina: North-western Africa and Spain (Mediterranean zone)
Hirudo nipponia: East Asia, including Far East district in Russian, Japan, Korea, China, Mongolia, Ryukyu Islands and Taiwan
Hirudo tianjinensis: China
Hirudo verbana is further divided into nonoverlapping eastern and western phylogroups.
Medical use
While H. medicinalis has long been used in hirudotherapy, and is approved by the US FDA as a prescription medical device, a 2007 study employing genetic analysis found that the species being marketed as H. medicinalis, possibly for decades, was the recently distinguished H. verbana.
Conservation status
A 2010 study of data gathered four species proposed an IUCN status of near threatened for H. medicinalis, H. verbana, and H. orientalis, and a status of data deficient for H. troctina.
References
- International Commission on Zoological Nomenclature (1922). "Opinion 75. Twenty-Seven Generic Names of Protozoa, Vermes, Pisces, Reptilia and Mammalia Included in the Official List of Zoological Names". Smithsonian Miscellaneous Collections. 73 (1): 35–37.
- "ITIS standard report: Hirudo (Linnaeus, 1758)". Integrated Taxonomic Information System. Retrieved 21 August 2013.
- ^ Trontelj, P; Utevsky, SY (2005). "Celebrity with a neglected taxonomy: molecular systematics of the medicinal leech (genus Hirudo)". Mol Phylogenet Evol. 34 (3): 616–624. doi:10.1016/j.ympev.2004.10.012. PMID 15683933.
- DeSalle, R.; Egan, M. G.; Siddall, M. (2005). "The unholy trinity: taxonomy, species delimitation and DNA barcoding". Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences. 360 (1462): 1905–1916. doi:10.1098/rstb.2005.1722. ISSN 0962-8436. PMC 1609226. PMID 16214748.
- ^ Saglam, N.; Saunders, R.; Lang, S. A.; Shain, D. H. (2016). "A new species of Hirudo (Annelida: Hirudinidae): historical biogeography of Eurasian medicinal leeches". BMC Zoology. 1 (1): 1–12. doi:10.1186/s40850-016-0002-x. ISSN 2056-3132.
- Orevi, Miriam; Eldor, Amiram; Giguzin, Ida; Rigbi, Meir (2000-01-01). "Jaw anatomy of the blood-sucking leeches, Hirudinea Limnatis nilotica and Hirudo medicinalis, and its relationship to their feeding habits". Journal of Zoology. 250 (1): 121–127. doi:10.1111/j.1469-7998.2000.tb00583.x. ISSN 1469-7998.
- ^ Utevsky, Serge; Zagmajster, Maja; Atemasov, Andrei; Zinenko, Oleksandr; Utevska, Olga; Utevsky, Andrei; Trontelj, Peter (2010). "Distribution and status of medicinal leeches (genus Hirudo) in the Western Palaearctic: anthropogenic, ecological, or historical effects?". Aquatic Conservation: Marine and Freshwater Ecosystems. 20 (2): 198–210. doi:10.1002/aqc.1071. ISSN 1052-7613.
- "Hirudo nipponia – Clitellates". BiotaTaiwanica Citellates. Archived from the original on 17 December 2013. Retrieved 17 December 2013.
- Wang, H; Meng, FM; Jin, SJ; Gao, JV; Tong, XR; Liu, ZC (2022). "A new species of medicinal leech in the genus Hirudo Linnaeus, 1758 (Hirudiniformes, Hirudinidae) from Tianjin City, China". ZooKeys (1095): 83–96. doi:10.3897/zookeys.1095.74071. PMC 9021146. PMID 35836684.
- Trontelj, Peter; Utevsky, Serge Y. (2012). "Phylogeny and phylogeography of medicinal leeches (genus Hirudo): Fast dispersal and shallow genetic structure". Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution. 63 (2): 475–485. doi:10.1016/j.ympev.2012.01.022. ISSN 1055-7903. PMID 22342869.
- Siddall, ME; Trontelj, P; Utevsky, SY; Nkamany, M; Macdonald, KS (2007). "Diverse molecular data demonstrate that commercially available medicinal leeches are not Hirudo medicinalis". Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences. 274 (1617): 1481–1487. doi:10.1098/rspb.2007.0248. PMC 2176162. PMID 17426015.