Paraclepsis jorapariensis Sp. Nov. (Hirudinea:Glossiphonidae):A New Leech from Jharkhand, India

Out of 667 species of leeches known in the world, 64 species are recorded in India (Mandal, 2009). There are 3 species of leeches belong to the genus Paraclepsis in the world (Harding, 1924). Soos is the pioneer in Taxonomy of leeches in the world. He has described a number of new species. Majority of the new species of leeches were described by Moore (1924), Moore and Harding (1927) and Bhatia (1931). Mandal (2004a, 2004b and 2009) has described three new species, two collected from West Bengal and one species from Tamil Nadu. Bandyopadhyay and Mandal (2006), described one new species from Tamil Nadu. Soota and Ghosh (1977), Chandra (1983), Ghosh (1998) also contributed considerably to the taxonomy of leeches of India. Soos (1965) contributed a model of leech taxonomy in the world. Now the author has an opportunity to describe a new species from jorapari, Girdih, Jharkhand, India.