The phrasal idiom " wretched brown flatworm ” might not ingrain fear in the hearts of man , but a recent study issue in the journalPeerJhas reported that a predatory , frame - eating planarian by the same description is currently tearing through garden in Europe . As globalization has made it well-fixed than ever for all coinage to globetrot , these Argentinian invaders have wrestle their room across the region at an restrain charge per unit , munching on local wildlife as they go .
admission to travelling is becoming more wide available than ever before , and when humankind go abroad , we just love packing some incursive species with us . From the marine rats who devastate bird populations in South Georgia to the cane toads that , when dumped in non - native Australia in 1935 to control beetle , obscure quoll and goanna population , it seems we never learn .
This later human - facilitated encroacher is under investigation by an international team lead by Jean - Lou Justine of the Muséum National d’Histoire Naturelle , Paris , France . They conceive the perpetrator , Obama nungara , snuck overseas via the external trade of plants , as grownup flatworms and their cocoons can easily go unnoticed in potting soil .
While this is n’t the first fourth dimension a flatworm has invade France , with previous illegal aliens include the New Guinea flatworm and giant hammerhead platyhelminth from Asia , it ’s the first time an intrusion has been so successful , as O. nungara is now found in three - quarters of gardens in Metropolitan France .
Where this becomes a problem is that these predatory , bod - eating platyhelminth gorge on earthworms and molluscs , which has the electric potential to negatively impact soil bionomics and menace the biodiversity of native beast . Its mien has so far been reassert in Spain , Portugal , Italy , Belgium , and the UK , but investigator have yet to properly evaluate the comprehensiveness of spread in these areas .
Study source Professor Jean - Lou Justine write that “ The encompassing dispersion of the specie and its reported local abundance , combine with the predatory fiber of the species , make O. nungara a potential threat to the biodiversity and bionomics of the aboriginal soil fauna in Europe , and probably the most threatening species of all encroaching land planarians present in Europe . ”
While more enquiry is demand to further assess the impact of these invasive platyhelminth and support the legitimacy of citizen science reporting , which , while extremely useful , is vulnerable to bias and misinformation , it seems the expectation for European earthworms could be bleak . In these uncertain times , there may beonly onewho can carry through us .
