are not native," says Matt Bertone, an entomologist at NC State University. "The majority of land flatworms in the U.S. Over the course of the past couple of hundred years, global commerce has helped the hammerhead worm wriggle its way into most suitable habitats in the world - and there are a lot of suitable habitats out there, although you're unlikely to find them in a desert or at the top of a mountain. These predatory planarians are native to tropical and subtropical regions of the globe, so they love wet, warm spots. Collins is trying to get funding to study the spread of New Guinea flatworms across the state.But hammerhead worms, all members of the genus Bipalium, aren't something to get too fussed about as they're not a new thing in the U.S., or in most places in the world - they've been common residents of American gardens since the early 1900s. 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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