Leeches of the World

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Species

Checklist / Piscicolidae / Austrobdella / Austrobdella californica

Austrobdella californica

Burreson, 1977 · Piscicolidae

Austrobdella californica, a leech of the family Piscicolidae

External morphology

~35 mm; pigmentation in life is uniformly green, often with narrow, paired, longitudinal, unpigmented stripes on the dorsal surface, and critically it lacks eyespots (and reaches 30.5 mm), the absence of eyespots is its handiest separator from the eyed species

Habitat & range

Habitat
Saltwater
Region
North America
Recorded from
Pacific Ocean

Biology

Host some Paralichthyidae, Scorpaenidae, and Pharidae

Taxonomic notes

Austrobdella californiana

Original description

Burreson, Eugene M. “A New Marine Leech Austrobdella Californiana n. Sp. (Hirudinea: Piscicolidae) from Southern California Flatfishes.” Transactions of the American Microscopical Society, vol. 96, no. 2, 1977, pp. 263–67. JSTOR,

doi:10.2307/3226104