Abstract

OCEGUERA-FIGUEROA, Alejandro  and  PACHECO-CHAVES, Bernald. Records of leeches from Costa Rica and taxonomic key for species identification with a redescription of Cylicobdella costaricae. Rev. Mex. Biodiv. [online]. 2012, vol.83, n.4, pp.946-957. ISSN 2007-8706.  https://doi.org/10.7550/rmb.31623.

In contrast to the enormous efforts made to characterize the fauna and flora from Costa Rica, except for a few isolated records, very little is known about leeches (Annelida: Clitellata) in the country. In this paper, we present the redescription of a poorly known terrestrial leech: Cylicobdella costaricae, characterizing its external and internal morphology, the latter, completely unknown to date. In addition, we report the first list of leech species for Costa Rica, including in total 12 taxa with records from the 7 provinces of the country. We provide a brief description of the leech morphology, pictures and localities for each taxon. The information shown here is the result of the study of both, specimens deposited at the Museo de Zoología of the Universidad de Costa Rica and the new collections. Finally, we provide a taxonomic key for species identification.

Keywords : Hirudinea; hirudineans; Rhynchobdellida; Arhynchobdellida; Central America; taxonomic key.