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76
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Introduction
I work on the systematics and phylogeny of invertebrate animals with a special emphasis on leeches and leech-like annelids. I use both classical and molecular phylogenetic methods to deduce their taxonomic relationships and evolutionary history.
Additional affiliations
October 1991 - present
Publications
Publications (76)
Background
Herein, we describe a new species of turtle blood-feeding leech, Placobdella nabeulensis sp. nov. from Palearctic North Africa (Tunisia and Algeria). The new species is described based on detailed morphological analyses using light and scanning electron microscopes.
Results
Apart from the detailed morphology of the atrium, morphological...
Herein, we describe a new species of turtle blood-feeding leech, Placobdella nabeulensis sp. nov. from Palearctic North Africa (Tunisia and Algeria). The new species is described based on detailed morphological analyses using light and scanning electron microscopes. Apart from the detailed morphology of the atrium, morphological features alone do n...
First record of the alien freshwater leech Helobdella europaea Kutschera 1987 in Portugal (Hirudinea, Glossiphoniidae). Recent spread of alien leech species has been reported throughout Europe, but a severe knowledge gap concerning their impact, distribution and ecology remains. Here, we document the occurrence of Helobdella europaea in a freshwate...
Acanthobdellida gnaw into the sides of salmonid fishes in frigid Arctic lakes and rivers, latching on with fearsome facial hooks. Sister to leeches, they are an ancient lineage with two described species. Unfortunately, Acanthobdellida are rarely collected, leading to a paucity of literature despite their unique morphology. Populations range from E...
Ampullaceana fontinalis (Studer, 1820) has not been considered as a separate species for a long time. Here we present new records of A. fontinalis for tributaries of the Siverskyi Donets River in Donetsk and Luhansk regions of Ukraine based on sequences of the cytochrome c oxidase gene and morphological characters. The newly generated sequences joi...
Background: In the project we propose to identify and compare marine tardigrades sampled
on expeditions to several biogeographically interesting regions. These regions include
seamounts and oceanic islands of the Arctic and temperate North Atlantic and the deep-sea
floor from polar to subtropical latitudes. Very few tardigrade records are currently...
Acanthobdellida gnaw into the sides of salmonid fishes in frigid Arctic lakes and rivers, latching on with fearsome
facial hooks. Sister to leeches, they are an ancient lineage with two described species. Unfortunately, Acanthobdellida
are rarely collected, leading to a paucity of literature despite their unique morphology. Populations range from E...
The bloodfeeding leech genus Placobdella is dominated by North American diversity, with only a single nominal species known from Central America and one from the Palearctic region. This is likely due to considerable underestimation of Palearctic biodiversity, but investigations into potential hidden diversity are lacking. To shed light on this, the...
The Ponto-Caspian amphipod Dikerogammarus bispinosus Martynov, 1925 was originally described from the Black Sea basin. Its recent discovery in the Caspian Sea basin was puzzling because it was unknown whether it was an invasive or an overlooked native species in this area. Here, we examined specimens collected from both the Black and Caspian Sea ba...
Nuevos registros de sanguijuelas del género Limnatis (Hirudinea, Praobdellidae) en el Cáucaso meridional y Asia central: relaciones filogenéticas de las poblaciones eurasiáticas y africanas
Las sanguijuelas del género Limnatis Moquin–Tandon, 1827 infestan las mucosas de varios mamíferos, incluidos los seres humanos y los ungulados domésticos. Se cr...
The gastropod Rapana venosa (Valenciennes, 1846) is a successful worldwide invader occurring in the Black Sea. The aim of this study is to overview specific population features of this mollusk from Odesa Bay through integrative systematic approach by means of morphological and molecular research. For this purpose, the mollusks were collected from t...
The diversity of freshwater leeches (Clitellata; Hirudinida) of Iran was estimated by employing both DNA barcoding and species delimitation methods. Phylogenetic relationships of arhynchobdellid (including Hirudinidae, Praobdellidae, Haemopidae, and Erpobdellidae) and rhynchobdellid (Glossiphoniidae) leeches were reconstructed, based on the cytochr...
Molluscs of the genus Corbicula are well-known invasive bivalves found all over the world. These ecologically important clams are characterised by a wide range of habitats (both brackish waters and freshwater environments) and by contrasting modes of reproduction in native ranges (including sexual and asexual modes) and in invasive ranges (asexual...
Until the beginning of the 21st century, the famous medicinal leech was thought to be represented by only one species, Hirudo medicinalis. However, recent publications have demonstrated that under that name, at least five different species of medicinal leeches were hidden. During the last decade, the biogeography of Western-Palaearctic leeches has...
A new Antarctic fish leech with unique external appearance is described and assigned to the bipolar genus Pterobdellina Bennike & Bruun, 1939. The systematic rank of the latter is elevated from a subgenus of the genus Pterobdella Kaburaki, 1921 to a separate generic level. Pterobdellina vernadskyi sp. nov. bears both marginal fin-like structures an...
New information on the occurrence of two alien decapod crustaceans, Macrobrachium nipponense and Procambarus virginalis, was summarized for Ukraine. The invasive potential of both species was estimated in the context of local environmental and socio-economic issues. Their history as non-native species is marked by the early use of alien decapods as...
Мармуровий рак (Procambarus virginalis) – популярний вид
декоративних раків серед акваріумістів України і Європи в
цілому. Вперше мармурових раків виявили в середині 1990-х
років німецькі акваріумісти. Procambarus virginalis викликає
велике занепокоєння як потенційно інвазивний вид, оскільки для
створення нової популяції необхідна тільки одна особи...
New information on the occurrence of Helobdella europaea Kutschera, 1987 was obtained. Four individuals assigned to this species were found in a private aquarium in Kharkiv. Helobdella europaea has not been recorded for Ukraine so far. The taxonomic identity of the leeches was confirmed by both a morphological examination and a molecular phylogenet...
The study presents new information on the population characteristics of two river snail species, Viviparus viviparus (Linnaeus, 1758) and V. contectus (Millet, 1813), in the water bodies of Ukraine in 2007–2018. The analyzed features include data of the species distribution, numbers and biomass, age and sex ratio population structure, fertility, gr...
Erpobdellid leeches of the genus Trocheta are among the biggest and most charismatic members of their class. The studies of the group have a long and complicated history due to the lack of reliable distinguishing features, which impedes the taxonomy of the genus. A number of Trocheta species have been misclassified for years if not centuries. Our p...
The Black Sea lowland is a part of ranges of species that do not live in Ukraine north of this region. These species are the erpobdellid leeches Trocheta danastrica Stschegolew, 1938 and Dina stschegolewi (Lukin & Epshtein, 1960), which were described from southern Ukraine. In this paper, we compare T. danastrica and D. stschegolewi with two morpho...
A part of the COI mitochondrial barcoding gene was sequenced from seven species of different taxonomical groups: Ambystoma mexicanum (Amphibia, Ambystomatidae), Darevskia lindholmi, Lacerta agilis exigua (Reptilia, Lacertidae), Erinaceus roumanicus ( Mammalia, Erinaceidae ), Macrobiotus sp. 1 and 2 (Eutardigrada, Macrobiotidae) and Cameraria ohride...
Johanssonia extrema n. sp. was described from a depth of 8728.8 m in the Kuril-Kamchatka Trench. The leech is elongate, up to 58 mm total length. Body is smooth, lacking papillae, tubercles, pigmentation, eyes and ocelli. Suckers are well-developed, eccentrically attached. Lateral pulsatile vesicles are present. Posterior crop caeca are fused. The...
Наведені відомості про 386 видів рідкісних і зникаючих тварин Харківської області (серед яких 41 вид, занесений до списку МСОП, 163
види — до Червоної книги України, 51 вид — до різноманітних Європейських червоних списків). Представлені таксономічна належність
кожного виду, природоохоронний статус, морфологічні та екологічні особливості кожного в...
На території Харківської області з 2009 р. по 2017 р.
знаходили 5 видів ракоподібних, занесених до Черво-
ної книги України: Hemidiaptomus rylowi Charin, 1929;
Branchipus schaefferi (Fischer, 1834); Tanymastix stagnalis
Linnaeus, 1758; Drepanosurus birostratus (Fischer, 1851)
та Gmelina pusilla (Sars, 1896)
A new fish leech Ambulobdella shandikovi n. g., n. sp. (Hirudinida: Piscicolidae), a parasite of Whitson’s grenadier Macrourus whitsoni (Regan) (Macrouridae: Gadiformes) collected in the Ross Sea at depths from 1,221 to 1,433 m, is described and compared with related taxa based on morphological and molecular characters. Ambulobdella shandikovi n. s...
The previous studies of marine biodiversity of the Argentine Islands Archipelago water area have been published in a series of documents as follows: SC-CAMLR-XXXI/BG/04 (2012), WGEMM-12/25 (2012), WG-EMM-14/41 (2014), WG-EMM-15/41 (2015). Later on, during the period of 2016-2018, an underwater and acoustic surveys, chemical analyses of bottom sedim...
Phylogenetic relationships between species of the genus Hirudo plus genetic variation in the entire distribution range of Hirudo orientalis were investigated based on mitochondrial (COI and 12S rDNA) and nuclear (ITS1+5.8S+ITS2) genome regions. The sister relationships of Hirudo orientalis and H. medicinalis were revealed with a high posterior prob...
Populations of the eastern medicinal leech, Hirudo orientalis from 13 localities at six freshwater eco-regions from Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Azerbaijan and Iran were analyzed for coloration pattern variability. In addition, coloration patterns of 1017 reared specimens including hatched, juvenile and adult leeches were considered. Elements of colorat...
In response to Živić et al. (Aquat Ecol 49:81–90, 2015. doi:10.1007/s10452-015-9506-7), who dismissed the previously established subdivision of the southern medicinal leech Hirudo verbana into an Eastern and Western phylogroup, we present a re-analysis of their and other available DNA sequence (COI) data. We demonstrate that their data not only per...
New information on the range of Erpobdella monostriata (Lindenfeld & Pietruszynski, 1890) was obtained. Results of our study show that this leech occurs not only in Central Europe but reaches European Russia. However, E. monostriata has not been recorded from the vast interspace between its localities in Central Europe and a dystrophic lake in the...
Збірка описів рідкісних видів безхребетних, які живуть у прісних водоймах
Харківщини, присвячена кільчастим червам (п'явкам), молюскам і ракоподібним, що
потребують охорони. Кожний опис містить інформацію про природоохоронний статус,
особливості будови, географічне поширення, чисельність, місцеперебування, біологію,
причини зміни чисельності та зах...
Morphological traits of jaws, denticles and salivary pores in jawed leeches are compared and an overview of their structural and functional properties is given. The species studied include Hirudo medicinalis, H. verbana, H. orientalis, H. nipponia, H. troctina, Limnatis nilotica, Haemopis sanguisuga and Whitmania laevis. Morphological descriptions...
Glossiphonia nebulosa was recorded for the first time from the Skadar Lake in Montenegro. This locality represents the southernmost spot of the species range in Europe known so far. Glossiphonia nebulosa co-occurs with Erpobdella testacea within 0.5 m off the stony shore of the lake.
Transitional Morphology in Hybrids of Hirudo verbana and H. orientalis (Clitellata, Hirudinida). Kova-lenko M. V., Utevsky S. Yu. — The aim of this research was to test the ability of hybridizing Hirudo orientalis S. Utevsky et Trontelj, 2005 and Hirudo verbana Carena, 1820. We obtained offspring from both species. The color pattern of all the hybr...
A new species of fish leeches, Dolichobdella rubra gen. n., sp. n., was found in samples collected by RV Akademik M.A. Lavrentyev in the northern Sea of Japan from 470–528 m during the joint Russian–German expedition SoJaBio (Sea of Japan Biodiversity Studies) in August 2010. The leech does not exceed 13 mm in length and has the following morpholog...
Acanthobdellidans are unique in their organisation and phylogenetic relationships due to having transitional characters that combine features of oligochaetous and achaetous annelids. Alongside the relatively well-studied Acanthobdella peledina Grube, 1851, there is another member of the group, Paracanthobdella livanowi (Epshtein, 1966), with five r...
Erpobdella vilnensis (Liskiewicz, 1925) was found in several localities in Ukraine, including the Carpathians and streams flowing into the Southern Bug River in the Odessa and Mykolaiv Regions. The latter is 600 km away from its finds in the Carpathians and is the easternmost known locality of the species. Our observations suggest that E. vilnensis...
The First Record of Helobdella nuda (Hirudinida, Glossiphoniidae) in Lake Baikal. Kaygorodova I. A., Utevsky S. Yu. – By far, the leech species Helobdella nuda (Moore, 1924) was known from China and the Amur River basin. It is found to occur in shallow waters of Lake Baikal. K e y w o r d s: Lake Baikal, leeches, Glossiphoniidae, Helobdella nuda. Ï...
Ranges of different species of medicinal leeches (Hirudo spp.) are nearly mutually exclusive with very few areas of overlapping. This biogeographical pattern suggests different ecological requirements for the two species. However, two habitats in Hungary and Ukraine where populations of H. verbana and H. medicinalis coexist were found. The aim of t...
The leech-like clitellate Branchiobdella kozarovi Subchev, 1978 was first recorded in the Netherlands in 2010, at a water reservoir near the city of Kerkrade. Hosts were all narrow-clawed crayfish Astacus leptodactylus Esch-scholtz, 1823. In the introduction an overview of the Dutch Branchiobdellida. is given
Medicinal leeches (Hirudo spp.) are among the best-studied invertebrates in many aspects of their biology. Yet, relatively little is known about their biogeography, ecology and evolution. Previous studies found vast ranges but suggested low genetic diversity for some species. To examine this apparent contradiction, the phylogeny and phylogeography...
First Record of the Boreal-Arctic Marine Leech Mysidobdella Borealis (Hirudinida, Piscicolidae) from the Southern Bay of Biscay
Four individuals of the marine fish leech Mysidobdella borealis (Johansson, 1898) were sampled from the mysids Schistomysis parkeri Norman, 1892 from the swash zone of Hendaye beach, France. This is the only known so far b...
An analysis of the reproduction of three species of medicinal leeches (genus Hirudo) was carried out. The highest fecundity (34.34 ± 3.72 hatchlings per leech) was observed in H. verbana, the lowest in H. medicinalis (11.10 ± 2.56). The heaviest hatchlings were found in H. medicinalis (0.046 ± 0.0005 g), the lightest in H. verbana (0.032 ± 0.0003 g...
Как правило, гидробиологи уделяют основное внимание постоянным,
крупным водоемам, имеющим практическое или рекреационное значение.
Фауна и экология временных водоёмов исследованы далеко не полностью. Это
особенно важно в связи с глобальным потеплением, так как временные
водоемы наиболее уязвимы. Нашей целью было оценить видовое разнообразие
ракообр...
1. Distribution and status of medicinal leeches were re-considered in the light of the new taxonomy recognizing four Western Palaearctic species: Hirudo medicinalis, Hirudo verbana, Hirudo orientalis and Hirudo troctina.
2. Recent records and new data obtained on expeditions to Ukraine, Russia, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan and the Western Bal...
New Information on the Hosts and Distribution of the Marine Fish Leeches Trachelobdella Lubrica and Pontobdella Muricata (Clitellata, Hirudinida)
Fish leeches collected in the Aegean Sea, the Sea of Marmara and the Black Sea were examined. Trachelobdella lubrica (Grube, 1840) was recorded for the first time from the ballan wrasse Labrus bergylta (O...
A new species of marine fish leeches is described and compared with its congeners. Oceanobdella sakhalinica possesses a unique combination of characters: the anterior sucker is small; one of posterior transverse bands on the urosome
is very dark; a wedge-shaped patch is located on the posterior sucker; posterior crop caeca are separate for their en...
Since the 18th century, the medicinal leech Hirudo medicinalis has been thought to comprise a single species with several different color morphs, but recently some of these color morphs have been assigned to separate species based on morphology, geographical distribution, and molecular sequence data. This research was aimed at testing the ability o...
Karyological preparations were made from the testisacs of three medicinal leech species Hirudo medicinalis Linnaeus, 1758, H. verbana Carena, 1820 and H. orientalis Utevsky & Trontelj, 2005
. The samples originated from different populations in Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Russian Federation, Ukraine and Uzbekistan. The chromosome numbers were determine...
The European medicinal leech is one of vanishingly few animal species with direct application in modern medicine. In addition to the therapeutic potential held by many protease inhibitors purified from leech saliva, and notwithstanding the historical association with quackery, Hirudo medicinalis has been approved by the United States Food and Drug...
Phylogenetic relationships of all genera of the fish leech subfamily Pontobdellinae were investigated using mitochondrial (12S rDNA, COI, tRNA-Leu, ND1) and nuclear (28S rDNA) DNA sequences under maximum likelihood, Bayesian inference and parsimony. All methods resulted in trees that corroborated the monophyly of the family Piscicolidae, but recove...
A recent molecular phylogenetic study has suggested that the genus Hirudo contains a neglected species previously known as the orientalis coloration type of the medicinal leech Hirudo medicinalis. In this paper, the new species is formally described as Hirudo orientalis sp. n. It can most readily be identified by the grass green coloration of the d...
The medicinal leech is the most famous representative of the Hirudinea. It is one of few invertebrates widely used in medicine and as a scientific model object. It has recently been given considerable conservation effort. Despite all attention there is confusion regarding the taxonomic status of different morphological forms, with many different sp...
The South American leech Helobdella triserialis was found in an aquarium in Kharkiv, Ukraine. The examined leeches have branched crop caeca and two transverse interruptions of paramedian stripes at the anterior end. H. triserialis feeds on various freshwater invertebrates and tolerates low temperature.
Utevsky, S. Y. & Trontelj, P. (2004). Phylogenetic relationships of fish leeches (Hirudinea, Piscicolidae) based on mitochondrial DNA sequences and morphological data. — Zoologica Scripta, 33, 375–385.
Phylogenetic relationships of fish leeches (Piscicolidae) were deduced from combined mitochondrial DNA sequences of 12S rDNA and COI genes using Bay...
