The continuing "Landchovy" chronicles

[urbpan]

I got another response from Dr. Ducey, I mean Pete, the flatworm researcher, after I offered to collect terrestrial flatworms alive for him on my next urban nature walk.

Dear Jef,

Thanks for your interest and help. (Please use just "Pete" for me)

Because these animals are not yet on the national radar screen and because SUNY Cortland is an undergraduate state college, funding is tight for the project and the assistance of folks like you has made our investigations possible.

This species (Bipalium adventitium = the wandering broadhead planarian) eats earthworms, and as such will have at least some impacts on ecosystems here in the US. Although many of us grew up thinking that earthworms are all good, current research has cast some doubts on that(also a long story that I could share in the future), so understanding how negative the impact of the flatworms will be on our ecosystems requires more research. Also on the positive side, the flatworms are fairly slow reproducers and don't eat all that much. On the negative side, we have not yet identified any local predators that eat the flatworms and the flatworms have very quickly spread across the country. The terrestrial flatworms that invaded Ireland and Scotland are considerably larger than B. adventitium, and although they had some clear impacts on earthworms in specific areas, there isn't evidence for widespread damage, at least yet. I am keeping in close contact with several researchers there to keep track of our separate but parallel invasions.

So in short then, we need to be concerned and aggressively investigating the potential impacts of the flatworms, but we don't need to panic. Of the many thousands of invading species in this country, it's not yet clear where these rank in terms of threat. In any case, they will be my main focus.

The planarians are best kept in small plastic containers (margarine type) with tight lids and a few tiny holes in the lid. The container should be filled with very moist, but not dripping wet paper towels. Although up to 5 to 8 flatworms can go in a single container, it is critical that no earthworms are present with them. Such a container should be kept away from heat sources or direct sunlight and the flatworms will last for weeks.

I would recommend not handling the flatworms directly -- maybe using a stick or spoon or very gentle forceps. Their skin probably contains poisons. Also, they are very delicate and can be injured by even light pinching.

The container should be shipped in a small box via FedEx or UPS, overnight. I will gladly reimburse you for the costs. The box should be marked on the outside with "Perishable" and "Please Rush" in several places. Don't say "live animals", this makes the mail carriers too nervous. Please use this address:

Dr. Peter Ducey
Department of Biological Sciences
SUNY at Cortland

Please mail out only on Mon, Tues, or Wed of any week so that if the package is delayed it won't sit in a warehouse over the weekend. Also, please alert me if you do send a box so that I can watch for it.

Again, thanks so much for your interest and willingness to help. If winter arrives before you find any more, please think again about us next spring. The flatworms, at least those here in upstate NY, survive over the winter as adults.

Best wishes,

Pete Ducey

Comments

[nevers.livejournal.com]

that's pretty exciting.

[moominmolly.livejournal.com]

It is!

[perspicuity.livejournal.com]

oh, now earthworms are bad too? hee :>

i love that word "landchovies" - wotd!

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[frederic.livejournal.com]

Wow... this is pretty cool that you could potentially add greatly to their study. Good luck in your searches!

[cottonmanifesto.livejournal.com]

Excellent. Let's ship him a whole box of the fuckers.

Poison, eh?

[dragonwrites.livejournal.com]

ditto...poison? wasn't there a picture of someone holding one in their hand a few days back?

[cottonmanifesto.livejournal.com]

um, yes, that'd be my hand!

[brush-rat.livejournal.com]

My understanding of who Jef was changed completely with the sentence "Whoa, you better hand him back to me...He's anointing his spines with venomous spittle."

[cottonmanifesto.livejournal.com]

hedgehogs are the cutest.

[fledchen.livejournal.com]

Nifty! I'm finding this topic fascinating, so please do continue to post about these critters.

[spocks-girl.livejournal.com]

>>I would recommend not handling the flatworms directly--their skin probably contains poisons<<

Whoops.

I agree with the above poster, please keep the community updated on Project Landchovy.

[ndozo.livejournal.com]

The Texas ones seem bigger and less slimy looking. By-steph has a photo of one and so does cdozo: (http://tinyurl.com/yy2qcm).

And it turns out that quite a few people on Flickr do too. I just searched "planarian."Maybe Pete Ducey could get some rough distribution info just by searching Flickr and seeing where the photos are from.

Was your guy stretched out and worm looking or smushed up and slug looking?

[urbpan.livejournal.com]

When I found him he was smushed up and sluggy (on the cold new england ground) but after I handled his poison-filled body for a while he became more elongate.

[(Anonymous)]

Yeah. Too bad about the poison. You and cottonmanifesto seemed nice. Oh well...

Permission to link to picture

[cyanocorax.livejournal.com]

I know this is pretty old news, but I still think it is cool and I'm blogging about it at http://ebiquity.umbc.edu/fieldmarking. (Tough to come up with new material everyday!). Wonder if you'd mind if I link to one of your photos. Thx.

Re: Permission to link to picture

[urbpan.livejournal.com]

Sure, you can link to my picture, just credit me (or <lj user="cottonmanifesto", if it's one of hers). Glad you're interested! And thanks for the plug over at "fieldmarking!" :)