Erpobdella is a genus of leeches in the family Erpobdellidae. Members of the genus have three or four pairs of eyes, but never have true jaws, and are typically long. All members do not feed on blood, but instead are predators of small aquatic invertebrates, which they often swallow whole.
Species
The genus includes species previously classified under the genera Croatobranchus, Mooreobdella, Trocheta and Nephelopsis. These were synonymized into Erpobdella by Sidall (2002) after morphogenetic analysis. There are over 30 currently accepted species:
- Erpobdella adani <small>(Tessler, Siddall, & Oceguera-Figueroa, 2018)</small>
- Erpobdella anoculata <small>(Moore, 1898)</small>
- Erpobdella bhatiai <small>Nesemann, 2007</small>
- Erpobdella borisi <small>Chichocka et al., 2015</small>
- Erpobdella bucera <small>(Moore, 1953)</small>
- Erpobdella bykowski <small>(Gedroyc, 1913)</small>
- Erpobdella concolor <small>Annandale, 1913</small>
- Erpobdella costata <small>Sawyer & Shelley, 1976</small>
- Erpobdella dubia <small>(Moore & Meyer, 1951)</small>
- Erpobdella fervida <small>(Verrill, 1874)</small>
- Erpobdella japonica <small>(Pawlowski, 1952)</small>
- Erpobdella johanssoni <small>(Johansson, 1927)</small>
- Erpobdella krasense <small>(Sket, 1968)</small>
- Erpobdella lahontana <small>Hovingh & Klemm, 2000</small>
- Erpobdella luguensis <small>Liu, 1984</small>
- Erpobdella melanostoma <small>(Sawyer & Shelley, 1976)</small>
- Erpobdella mestrovi <small>(Kerovec, KuÃÂiniÃÂ & JalÃ
¾iÃÂ, 1999)</small>
- Erpobdella mexicana <small>(Dugès, 1872)</small>
- Erpobdella microstoma <small>(Moore, 1901)</small>
- Erpobdella monostriata <small>(Lindenfeld et Pietruszynski, 1890)</small>
- Erpobdella nigricollis <small>(Brandes, 1900)</small>
- Erpobdella obscura <small>(Verrill, 1872)</small>
- Erpobdella octoculata <small>(Linnaeus, 1758)</small>
- Erpobdella ochoterenai <small>Caballero, 1932</small>
- Erpobdella punctata <small> (Leidy, 1870)</small>
- Erpobdella quaternaria <small>(Moore, 1930)</small>
- Erpobdella sibirica <small>Kaygorodova, 2024</small>
- Erpobdella subviridis <small>(Dutrochet, 1817)</small>
- Erpobdella testacea <small>(Savigny, 1820)</small>
- Erpobdella tetragon <small>(Sawyer & Shelley, 1976)</small>
- Erpobdella triannulata <small>Moore, 1908</small>
- Erpobdella vilnensis <small>(Liskiewicz, 1925)</small>
- Erpobdella wuttkei <small>Kutschera, 2004</small>
References