Real Horse Leech - Whitmania pigra specimen encased in clear lucite material. Safe, authentic and completely unbreakable product put real Leech right at your fingertips!

You can explore the Leech from every angle .

It is clear enough for microscope observation.

Length of the Leech is 6 cm (2.4 inch).

Size of the lucite block is 7.3x4.0x2.1 cm (2.9x1.6x0.8 inch).

Each one comes with a cardboard box for easy storage.

Weight of the block is 100 g and 125 g with packing box.

It is an ideal learning aid for students and kids and also a very good collectible item for every body.

This is a handmade real animal specimen craft. Each one will be a bit different (specimen size, color and posture) even in the same production batch.
The pictures in the listing are just for reference as we are selling multiple pieces with same pictures.

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Horse Leech - Whitmania pigra

Kingdom: Animalia
Subkingdom: Eumetazoa
Superphylum: Lophotrochozoa
Phylum: Annelida
Class: Clitellata
Subclass: Hirudinea

Infraclasses: Acanthobdellidea Euhirudinea

Leeches are annelids comprising the subclass Hirudinea.The leech has 34 brais and segmented parts. There are freshwater, terrestrial, and marine leeches. Like the Oligochaeta, they share the presence of a clitellum. Like earthworms, leeches are hermaphrodites. Some, but not all leeches are hematophagous.

The European Medical Leech (Hirudo medicinalis) and some congeners as well as some other species have been used for clinical bloodletting for thousands of years, although most leeches do not feed on human blood, but on small invertebrates, which they eat whole.

Haemophagic leeches attach to their hosts and remain there until they become full, at which point they fall off to digest. A leech's body is composed of 34 segments. They all have an anterior (oral) sucker formed from the first six segments of their body, which is used to connect to a host for feeding, and also release an anesthetic to prevent the host from feeling the leech. They use a combination of mucus and suction (caused by concentric muscles in those six segments) to stay attached and secrete an anti-clotting enzyme, hirudin, into the host's blood stream.

Some species of leech will nurture their young, while providing food, transport, and protection, which is unusual behavior in an invertebrate.

Anatomy

Most leeches are 2 to 5 centimetres (0.79 to 2.0 in) long, with some species as small as 1 centimetre (0.39 in), and the largest, Haemanteria ghiliani from the Amazon jungle, reaching 30 centimetres (12 in) in length. The body is flattened, and often pointed towards the front end. The last few segments are modified to form a large disc-shaped sucker, while a smaller sucker surrounds the mouth.

The body is always divided into a total of 34 segments, although this is not always obvious from the animal's external appearance. In many cases, for instance, there are several rings on the outside of the body, that give the leech the appearance of having a hundred or more segments. Unlike other annelids, leeches have no setae (bristles). The ninth, tenth, and eleventh segments form the clitellum, which is important in reproduction.

Most leeches breathe through their skin, and have no other respiratory organs, although one family (the Pisciolidae) has external gills. Most also lack a true circulatory system, and instead propel their blood through a series of sinuses that represent all that remains of the coelom, or general body cavity, the rest having been replaced by connective tissue. Some leeches have haemoglobin dissolved in the blood, although they have no blood cells.

The blood sinuses also connect to the metanephridia, small ducts running through the connective tissue to open on segments in the middle third of the body. These filter waste products from the blood, and serve the same function as vertebrate kidneys. The structure of these ducts is often complex, and can serve to distinguish between different types of leech.

The nervous system is relatively simple, with the brain consisting of a relatively small ring of tissue around the pharynx. The head has from two to ten eyes, each of which consist of a pigmented cup surrounding a cluster of photoreceptors.

Reproduction

Leeches are hermaphrodites, meaning each one of them has both female and male reproductive organs (ovaries and testes respectively). Leeches reproduce by reciprocal fertilization, and sperm transfer occurs during copulation.The leech exercising the role of the male will grow a sperm sack near the end of its tail, and the leech playing the female will bite it off, thus reproducing. Similarly to the earthworms, leeches also use a clitellum to hold their eggs and secrete the cocoon.

During reproduction leeches utilize hyperdermic injection of their sperm. They use a spermatophore, which is a structure containing the sperm. Once next to another leech, the two will line up with their anterior side opposite the other's posterior. The leech then shoots the spermatophore into the clitellur region of the opposing leech where its sperm will make its way to the female reproductive parts.

Leech bites

Though all species of leeches feed on blood, not all species can bite; 90% of them solely feed off decomposing bodies and open wounds of amphibians, reptiles, waterfowl, fish, and mammals (including, but not limited to, humans). A leech attaches itself when it bites, and it will stay attached until it has had its fill of blood. Due to an anticoagulant (hirudin) that leeches secrete, bites may bleed more than a normal wound after the leech is removed. The effect of the anticoagulant will wear off several hours after the leech is removed and the wound is cleaned.

Leeches normally carry parasites in their digestive tract which cannot survive in humans and do not pose a threat. However, bacteria, viruses, and parasites from previous blood sources can survive within a leech for months, and may be retransmitted to humans. A study found both HIV and hepatitis B in African leeches from Cameroon.