1/20/2024 0 Comments New guinea flat worms"They're a dark worm with a dorsal orange stripe down the center of their back," says Beckford. Now a Cape resident has found some of those worms in a flower pot and that has officials launching a serious investigation.įox 4 showed photos of the worms to Roy Beckford, an agriculture agent in Lee County who works with the University of Florida. It was big news last year when these worms were found in Miami, now we're learning they were also spotted in Cape Coral last September, we just didn't know. It's an invasive species called the New Guinea flatworm and was discovered last year in Miami, now local and state officials are investigating. A potentially deadly worm found in Cape Coral Thursday is raising concerns about how it got here and how to keep them out. Collins is trying to get funding to study the spread of New Guinea flatworms across the state.CAPE CORAL, Fla. But there is no indication that the flatworms found in Florida are carrying harmful rat lung worms right now. That’s why he said people should not touch them. "If you become infected, it can burrow into the meninges of the brain causing a kind of encephalitis." "These things can carry the rat lung worm, which is something that can be transmitted to humans," he said. But Collins said the flatworms threaten more than just Florida’s environment. He said New Guinea flatworms caused the extinction of native land snails in other parts of the world. "And this is just another challenge for them." "Development, other kinds of non-native things have been introduced, loss of habitat- all these sorts of things are affecting our native land snails," said Collins. Credit Alicie Warren Researchers in Florida found a New Guinea flatworm in the shell of a dead native land snail, which could indicate a problem for the local snail population.
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