Hirudinea

Hirudinea [‚hi·rə′din·ē·ə]

(invertebrate zoology)

A class of parasitic or predatory annelid worms commonly known as leeches; all have 34 body segments and terminal suckers for attachment and locomotion.

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Hirudinea

A class of the annelid worms commonly known as leeches. These organisms are parasitic or predatory and have terminal suckers for attachment and locomotion. Most inhabit inland waters, but some are marine and a few live on land in damp places. The majority feed by sucking the blood of other animals, including humans.

Leeches differ from other annelids in having the number of segments in the body fixed at 34, chaetae or bristles lacking, and the coelomic space between the gut and the body wall filled with packing tissue (see illustration). In a typical leech the first six segments of the body are modified to form a head, bearing eyes, and a sucker, and the last seven segments are incorporated into a posterior sucker.

General structure of a leech

The mouth of a leech opens within the anterior sucker, and there are two main methods of piercing the skin of the host to obtain blood: an eversible proboscis or three jaws, each shaped like half a circular saw, placed just inside the mouth. The process of digestion is very slow, and a meal may last a leech for 9 months. The carnivorous forms have lost most or all of their gut diverticula and resemble earthworms in having a straight, tubular gut. Leeches are hermaphroditic, having a single pair of ovaries and several pairs of testes.

The importance of leeches as a means of making incisions for the letting of blood or the relief of inflammation is declining, and in developed countries the bloodsucking parasites of mammals are declining, because of lack of opportunity for contact with the hosts. In other countries they are still serious pests.