![]() ![]() You’re likely not going to find any more snails there, either. “One pattern that seemed pretty clear to us, so far, is that they tend to be in higher abundance in areas that are nearer to human development,” Collins said. A project by Collins and FIU colleague Lawrence Lopez looked into New Guinea flatworm densities in randomly selected quadrats in Castellow, along with the densities of tree snails in those areas. Studies in Japan and in the United States show these worms will clear out an area of whatever tree snails they can find. They’re nocturnal and like warm, moist weather, so they’re busy these summer nights. This worm, platydemus manokwari - also known as the New Guinea flatworm - is “beefier” than many other flatworms, Collins said. ![]() The worms wouldn’t expand their range so fast on their own, so it’s believed their rapid expansion throughout the Florida peninsula and western Panhandle is because of human interference - transporting worms in potted plants, for instance. “They were crawling around the site, so it became very obvious that these flatworms were having a dramatically negative impact on Castellow Hammock,” Collins said. He and Warren went out to the site and found large flatworms, many of them in the process of feeding on tree snails. It used to be a pretty happy place for liguus tree snails, our native tree snails, so she was concerned.” There were just hundreds and hundreds of recently dead snails, lying all around in Castellow 33. “(It was) one part of Castellow, called Castellow 33. Alicie Warren, who worked at Castellow Hammock … and she found there was this massive mortality going on in one of the parks - Castellow, in particular,” Collins said during a virtual meeting hosted by the Florida Invasive Species Partnership. He mostly worked with marine mollusks until a curious phenomenon was seen in Miami’s Castellow Hammock Preserve & Nature Center in 2015. That species is the focus of Tim Collins, a biological sciences professor at Florida International University. A worm, no less, described as particularly “beefy.” ![]() That idyll is threatened by another Florida fact of life - an invasive species. Some of Florida’s creepy-crawlies are supposed to be here and, like the state’s native tree snails, they add to the state’s lauded natural beauty. ![]()
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