Skip to main content

False obama flatworm (Amaga pseudobama), a new species of subtropical terrestrial planaria for science

False obama flatworm (Amaga pseudobama), a new species of subtropical terrestrial planaria for science

NEWS - French and Australian researchers have identified a new species of predatory planarian, false obama flatworm (Amaga pseudobama Geoplanidae), from North Carolina and Florida that was initially mistaken for Obama nungara from South America. However, molecular and histological analysis suggests that the specimen is not only a different species, but not even in the same genus.

“There are many types of flatworms, but most of them live in water. Most of the flatworms you find on land are in tropical ecosystems, so it’s a bit surprising to find a terrestrial flatworm species in North Carolina that science didn’t know about,” said Matthew Bertone of North Carolina State University.

“Free-living flatworms, not parasites, are predators that feed on other soft-bodied organisms, like earthworms and snails. People often worry that unidentified flatworms might be toxic, might carry parasites, or might be invasive and threaten native ecosystems,” Bertone said.

A. pseudobama is black-brown and less than an inch long. Bertone sent a photo of the flatworm to an expert for a preliminary identification and sent a physical specimen for a definitive diagnosis planarian experts thought it was O. nungara.

Meanwhile, Bertone received more shipments of the unidentified flatworm from two other locations in North Carolina, hundreds of miles away from where the first specimen was found. And these new samples were found in residential landscapes, not commercial nurseries.

"The new species is called Amaga pseudobama and we know very little about it. It's never been observed in the wild or in its native habitat, so we don't know much about how it interacts with its environment. We infer from what we know about related species, but we don't know exactly what it eats, how fast it reproduces and so on," Bertone said.

After the new species was formally identified Amaga (Ogren & Kawakatsu, 1990), the researchers discovered that samples of the species had been collected before, but no one knew what they were. There were a few samples collected in Florida in 2015.

"The fact that the initial North Carolina samples were found on plants that had been shipped from Georgia suggests that A. pseudobama can be found throughout the Southeast. It's also possible that this is just an isolated example," Bertone said.

"Discovering a new flatworm species isn't necessarily surprising; these animals are so understudied that there are likely many more species waiting to be discovered," Bertone said.

"However, the fact that we know so little about them is one reason why they are worth paying attention to. Whether they pose a risk to native worms and their impact on us. We need to study this species to find out. The first step in that process is to clearly identify the species and name it,” Bertone said.

Original research

Justine J, Gastineau R, Gey D, Robinson DG, Bertone MA, Winsor L. (2024). A new species of alien land flatworm in the Southern United States. PeerJ 12:e17904, DOI:10.7717/peerj.17904

Dlium theDlium
Labels:

Popular Posts

Kunu buti (Mesosphaerum suaveolens)

Kunu buti ( Mesosphaerum suaveolens ) is a species of plant in the Lamiaceae family. It is an erect, herbaceous annual, growing up to 1.5 meters tall. Its cylindrical, rough, brown or green stem is hairy and white. It grows on forest floors, bushes, agricultural fields, and roadsides. Its roots are fibrous and brownish-yellow. M. suaveolens has single, opposite leaves, stalks 2-5 cm long and hairy. The leaf blades are green, hairy, oval, with pointed tips, blunt bases, serrated edges, up to 6 cm long, up to 5 cm wide, and pinnate veins. The flowers are compound, axillary, in clusters, perfect, and bisexual. The petals are attached, forming a tube, each tip elongated like a spine, soft, 3-10 mm long, and green. The corolla is attached, asymmetrically detached, 1-2 cm long, and purple. The fruit is single, hard, capsule-shaped, hairy on the surface, and green or brown in color. The seeds are round, small and blackish brown in color. TAXON Kingdom: Plantae Phylum: Tracheophyta Subphyl...
Read more

Asian foxtail (Uraria crinita)

Asian foxtail or cat's tail bean ( Uraria crinita ) is a species of plant in Fabaceae, a perennial, upright shrub with woody stems at least at the base, up to 2 meters high in forests, agricultural land, waterways, used as a medicinal herb, green manure and sometimes planted in the garden as an ornamental plant. U. crinita has elongated leaves, rounded base, pointed tip, a bone in the middle with several pinnate veins, rough surface, dark green with white spots. Petiole short or less than 0.5 cm and brownish red. Compound flower in spike shape, purple and white triangular crown. Long flower stalk, erect, 15-20 cm long and only at the end of the flower. The crown slowly falls off and leaves behind a stalk that is shaped like coir or light yellow pads. Asian foxtail grows in dry grasslands, open forests, trash cans, roadsides, sandy areas and sometimes in deciduous forests, elevations of 0-1500 meters and does not grow in waterlogged places. The different parts are often used in t...
Read more

Brazilian vervain (Verbena brasiliensis)

Brazilian vervain ( Verbena brasiliensis ) is a species of plant in the Verbenaceae, an annual shrub with erect stems, up to 1 meter high, triangular or semi-spherical in shape with sharp corners, green, white-haired, lower branches in an opposite arrangement, branches above grows in an irregular formation. V. brasiliensis has elongated leaves, up to 20 cm long, up to 4 cm wide, sharp tip, deeply serrated or flat margins, dark green in color, a main vein in the middle and whitish in color, several minor veins laterally, rough and stiff surface. Inflorescences in panicles at the end of a long stalk up to 5 cm long. The flower petals are 3 mm long, 5 lobed and tubular in shape. The corolla is formed from fused petals and spreads open at the tip, only slightly longer than the calyx. Flowers have reproductive organs of both sexes. Superior and bicarpellary ovaries. The fruit is a schizocarp or dried fruit that splits when ripe. Wrapped in petals. Nutlets are triangular in cross-sec...
Read more