France is known for many of its cultural detail , include exceptional cuisine , wine-coloured , and the Louvre . shortly , it may also be known for its arm - length , power shovel - headed , carnivorous worms .
New research suggest that several species of these discomfiting creatures — known as hammerhead flatworms — have slide into the nation as encroaching species . Perhaps even stranger is the fact that they ’ve been establishing themselves in France almost undetected for decade .
Hammerhead flatworms do n’t attend like they belong on Earth . The ribbon - shape critters that boast a freaky sports fan - determine “ headplate ” that have them look unnervingly like thatalien “ Hammerpede ” thingthat killed a bunch of scientist inPrometheus . Most of them are about the size and shape of a fragment of cooked fettuccine attic , but some giant can turn over restrain length of a meter or more .
They are also ravenous predators of soil invertebrates like angleworm and slugs , which they immobilize with powerful muscles and , in some species , tetrodotoxin — the same paralytic poison in pufferfish . Once fair game is captured , the flatworm everts its “ stomach ” out of its oral fissure , secretes digestive enzyme , and slurps the dupe ’s liquefied tissues up into its gut .
All of this is utterly fine and normal and not terrorise in the least .
Their predatory nature is case for concern , though , because several coinage of hammerhead flatworm — originating in places like Madagascar , India , and Southeast Asia — have colonized vast portion of the ball , and it ’s not well - see how these incursive predator are impacting local species . The new bailiwick , published today in the journal PeerJ , highlights just how far the worms have diffuse under our nozzle .
The bearing of hammerhead flatworm in France first came to the attending of Jean - Lou Justine — lead author and parasitologist at the French National Museum of Natural History — in 2013 .
“ A colleague sent me a photograph of an unknown ground platyhelminth , exact in France , ” Justine told Earther . “ That was unusual and unexpected . After a few other emails , I realized that several species were involved and that nobody was exploit in this landing field . ”
What follow was a home flatworm survey driven by citizen scientific discipline . Justine and his colleagues advertised that they were looking for these strange worm , and over the next four years , C of reports poured in from across the country and overseas French territories . Some people just sent in photograph of weird , unfamiliar dirt ball in their gardens . But other accounts are jarring , like a record from 2013 where a kindergarten class was terrify of hundreds of “ small snakes ” wriggling in the forage .
Others sent in live worms by post , which Justine says was critical for using genetics to ID the worms to species .
In the end , Justine and his team found that five species of hammerhead platyhelminth are present in France and its oversea territories , all of which appear to be non - aboriginal and likely also invading .
Perhaps most disgraceful was that two trespassing species likely originate from Asia — Bipalium kewense and Diversibipalium multilineatum — were consistently turning up in gardens in metropolitan regions of France . These two metal money theoretically would be hard to omit , being bright - coloured and equal to of growing as long as your shin , yet they run comparatively unnoticed by scientist or governmental authorities for twenty years . fantastically , some of the business relationship sent in to the enquiry team dated back to 1999 .
Justine is n’t certain how such blatant animals could hedge prescribed acknowledgement for so long in such a densely populated domain , but he thinks widespread unfamiliarity with tellurian flatworms — even among scientist — may be partially responsible .
“ We have reports by some citizens that they went to universities with their flatworms in a small box and that they were not take seriously , ” Justine say , “ in all likelihood the soul who received them simply did not know what the animal were . ”
That such a eminent diverseness of incursive predatory animals has slipped by undetected is a bit of a wake up call . It is n’t known precisely how enter flatworms will impact local filth ecology , but their diet of wiggler makes their spread lawfully perturbing .
“ dew worm are a major component of the soil biomass and a very authoritative element in the ecology of soils , ” Justine said . “ Any predator which can diminish the population of earthworms is thus a terror to stain bionomics . ”
Jake Buehleris a science writer living on Washington ’s Olympic Peninsula with an idolisation for the Tree of Life ’s uncanny , wild , and unvalued — follow him onTwitteror at hisblog .
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