Placobdella godavariensis Sp. Nov. (Hirudinea:Glossiphonidae) :A New Leech from Maharashtra, India

Out of 700 species of leeches known in the world, 64 species are recorded in India (Mandal, 2009). There are 26 species of leeches belong to the genus Placobdella Blanchard 1893 in the world. Sixteen species of the genus Placobdella are described from North America, one species from Europe, three species from South America and 6 species from Asia. Out of six species of this genus reported from India, five species are endemic. Soos (1965) 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 Harding and Moore (1924, 1927), Bhatia (1931). Mandal (2004a and 2004b) has described two new species, collected from West Bengal. Bandyopadhyay (2004 and 2005), Mandal (2004 and 2010), have done some work on ecology of leeches. Soota (1977), Chandra (1983), Ghosh (1998) also contributed considerably to the taxonomy of leeches of India.