Ukrainian scientists discover new leeches species from Antarctic
Ukrainian scientists have discovered a new species of Antarctic leeches, whose ancestors migrated to the Arctic millions of years ago and then returned to the Antarctic. The discovery was made by zoologists Andrii and Serhii Utievskyis in collaboration with foreign colleagues Aleksander Bielecki and Joanna Cichocka from Poland, Mario Santoro from Italy and Peter Trontelj from Slovenia.
Source: National Antarctic Scientific Centre of Ukraine, citing Systematics and Biodiversity journal
Together, the scientists studied the distribution of fish parasites – piscicolidae leeches. Having discovered a new species, zoologists carefully studied its external and internal structure, as well as nuclear and mitochondrial genes.
Quote: "It turned out that the new leech belongs to a group called platybdellinas. They are common in the Arctic and adjacent waters of the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. It's the same as finding a polar bear in the Antarctic!" Serhii Utievskyi says.
Next, scientists began to study how such an extraordinary geographical distribution could arise because most animals live exclusively in the northern or southern hemisphere.
"Phylogenetic analysis and reconstruction of ancestral habitats proved that the fish leeches originated in the seas around the Antarctic, then they spread through the world ocean, reached the Arctic and penetrated the fresh waters of the northern hemisphere.
However, later the ancestor of our species returned from the north to the ancestral homeland of the entire family of fish leeches in the Antarctic," the researchers found.
The molecular clock showed that the new species split from its northern relatives around 1.76 million years ago during the Pleistocene, when the Earth's surface cooled significantly. It was during this era that it was able to cross the tropics.
Ukrainian scientists have discovered a new species of leeches from the Antarctic which migrated twice, and named it Austroplatybdellina prodiga
Scientists assigned the new species to a new genus, which they named Austroplatybdellina, which translates from Latin as "southern platybdellina" because this Antarctic leech belongs to the mostly northern group of platybdellina.
The full official name of the species new to science is Austroplatybdellina prodiga.
"The evolutionary history of the new species reminded us of the parable of the prodigal son, who left his father and wandered in distant lands, just like platybdellina leeches in the northern seas. Later, one of them returned to the southern ancestral homeland," Serhii Utevskyi said, explaining the play on words.
The discovery was made by zoologists Andrii and Serhii Utevskyis together with foreign colleagues
The Utevskyi brothers are famous researchers of the polar regions from Kharkiv, they are graduates of the V. N. Karazin Kharkiv National University.
They have been studying leeches of different regions for many years: Serhii studies Arctic leeches, and Andrii Antarctic leeches (he was a winterer of the 8th Ukrainian Antarctic Expedition and a participant in numerous seasonal expeditions to the Ukrainian Antarctic Station named after Akademik Vernadsky).
"Currently, they have discovered 19 species of animals new to science," the scientific centre adds.
Earlier, Ukrainian polar explorers showed footage of penguins waiting for egg hatching.
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