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Of the 650 species of leech listed, Hirudo medicinalis is one of the most extensively studied. This annelid from the subclass Hirudinea has 2 suckers, one housing the mouth and its 3 jaws. It lives mainly in the stagnant waters of marshes and ponds. When it comes to reproduction, the animal is a hermaphrodite. Inseminated leeches lay their eggs during the spring and summer months, outside the water, with cocoons containing as many as thirty young.
Range of Chironex fleckeri as traditionally defined, but see text. Chironex fleckeri, commonly known as the sea wasp, is a species of highly venomous box jellyfish found in coastal waters from northern Australia and New Guinea north to the Philippines and Vietnam. It has been described as the most lethal jellyfish in the world, with at least 63 known deaths in Australia from 1884 to 1996. Notorious for its sting, C. fleckeri has tentacles up to 3 m long covered with millions of cnidocytes which, on contact, release microscopic darts delivering an extremely po