Checklist / Piscicolidae / Italobdella / Italobdella ciosi
Italobdella ciosi
ยท Piscicolidae
External morphology
Up to 21 mm. 2 pairs of eyes - the first larger. On posterior sucker 10 eye-like spots. Respiratory vesicles (11 pairs) white, rather smalI but welI visible. Body smooth, with no papillae. Four kinds of melanophores: brown, black, white and yellow. Their arrangement makes the body brightly coloured and very characteristic. The dorsal side is much darker with dense brown melanophores. Ventral side lighter. The trachelosome is the darkest. The urosome, because of the alimentary tract shining through, is lighter. Gonopores separated by 3 annuli. Male gonopore very large, female gonopore slightly larger.
Habitat & range
- Habitat
- Freshwater
- Region
- Europe
- Recorded from
- Italy
Biology
Collected from ventral fins of the brown trout, Salmo trutta , barbel, Barbus barbus and perch, Perca jluviatilis
Original description
Bielecki, Italobdella ciosi, a new leech genus and species from Italy (Hirudinea: Piscicolidae). (1993). Genus (Wroclaw), 4(2), 67-78
Sources used for this page
Picutre: Fish leeches of Poland in relation to the Palaearctic piscicolines (Hirudinea: Piscicolidae: Piscicolinae); Description: Fish leeches of Poland in relation to the Palaearctic piscicolines (Hirudinea: Piscicolidae: Piscicolinae)