First Record of a Cavernous Land Leech Sinospelaeobdella cavatuses (Hirudinda: Haemadipsidae) from Thailand

Abstract

Sixteen specimens of cavernous land leeches collected from a cave in Chiang Mai Province, northern Thailand, were examined by integrating morphological and molecular analyses. A phylogenetic tree based on COI sequences nested these specimens within the clade of the cavernous land leech Sinospelaeobdella cavatuses (Yang, Mo & Wang, 2009), bloodsucking leech that feeds exclusively on cave-dwelling bats, recently described from China and now representing the first record of a cavernous leech species in Thailand. Average genetic distance between Thai and Laotian specimens (4.02% P-distance) was higher than between Thailand and Chinese specimens (0.95% P-distance). Morphological description of Thai specimens is provided. Thai materials showed smaller body dimensions than the range reported in recent studies on this species.