Taxonomy

  • Kingdom Animalia

  •  Presence of eukayotic cells, or those cells containing membrane-bound organelles.
     
  • Phylum Annelida

  •  Includes all of the segmented worms.
     
  • Class Hirudinea

  •  A class that  includes all leaches, they are characterized by their parasitic lifestyle and the presence of suckers.
     
  • Subclass Euhirudinea

  •  Make up the majority of leeches.
     
  • Order Rhynchobdellida

  •  Strictly aquatic leeches. They feed on vertebrate and invertebrate hosts using a reversible proboscis.
     
  • Family Pisicolidae

  • Marine leaches that parasitize fish.
     
  • Genus Notostomum

  • A genus of marine leech consisting of only two species, N. cyclostoma which lives in the North Pacific Ocean and N. laeve that lives in the Artic ocean .  Both species live their lives attached to marine fish and deposit their egg cocoons on the carapaces of crab.

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