Book Description

In English speaking countries the leeches are a neglected group of animals. Very few zoologists study them and apart from the volume in the " Fauna of British India" series there is no book in English devoted to them. In Germany and the central European countries the Hirudinea are much better known. Antrum (1939) lists over 2500 research papers, most of them in German, and leech biology has been summarized in several extensive works. The purpose of this volume is to present a fairly concise account of the Hirudinea at a level appropriate to the honours student of zoology at a university. It is hoped that a summary of present knowledge, particularly in the realm of physiology, will also be of value to more senior zoologists, so references to the original papers have been given where appropriate. The guiding principle in determining to what extent the text need be interrupted by references has been that work summarized in the Hirudinea volume of Bronns: Klassen und Ordnungen des Tierreichs (1936-9) should be quoted without extensive references, while results published since 1939 and here reviewed for the first time should be fully documented...