A bizarre invasive worm with its mouth in the middle of its belly has been found in the United States for the first time, according to new research.
The New Guinea flatworm (Platydemus manokwari) is only a couple of millimeters thick but grows to be up to 2.5 inches (65 millimeters) long. As its name suggests, the worm is a New Guinea native, but it has been spreading across the globe, hitching rides on exotic plants and in soil. The worm wraps itself around snails and ingests them with a mouthlike structure on its underside. As an invasive species, it's a threat to native snails — so much so that the Invasive Species Specialist Group of the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) lists it among the 100 worst invasive species in the world.
The flatworm had previously been detected in the wild in 15 countries, as well as in a greenhouse in France, but this is the first time it's been found in North America. A multinational group of researchers, led by scientists at the Muséum National d'Histoire Naturelle in France, combed through flatworm specimens and photographs collected by locals around the world
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