Tag blood

The fact and fallacy about Hippo pink blood, sweat, and milk

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What is fact and what is fallacy about Hippo pink blood, sweat, and milk? What is pink and what is not?

The Common Hippopotamus (Hippopotamus amphibious) is a large, semi-aquatic African even-toed ungulate (hoofed) mammal in the Hippopotamidae family.

It has a grey-brown, hairless, barrel-shaped body, with pink patches, a big head, and small stumpy legs.  

The female Hippopotamus is pregnant for eight months before giving birth to one live young at at time, called a calf. The baby Hippo is born underwater, but swims quickly to the surface to take a breath of air.

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Medicinal Leech

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The Medicinal Leech (Hirudo verbenaand Hirudo medicinalis) is an invertebrate parasitic worm, and an annelid. It is related to the earthworm. It is called medicinal because doctors have used the leech to draw blood from patients.

There are two types of true leeches: Rhynchobdellida (with a proboscis to puncture the skin of animals) and Arhynchobdellida (without a proboscis). The Medicinal Leech (Hirudo verbena) is a Arhynchobdellida Hirudiniformes (a leech without a proboscis, but with jaws at the front of the mouth).

The Medicinal Leech has a flat, soft, muscular, segmented body without a backbone or skeleton. Therefore, it is an invertebrate. Its upper part is grey with pinkish stripes, or  mottled grey-pink-brown, and its underbelly is pale-grey. Its body can lengthen and contract (i.e. get bigger and smaller) as it moves. It has suckers on it mouth and its tail end (anterior and posterior suckers).

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