GardenBanter.co.uk - View Single Post

10-07-2003, 12:27 AM

(Glenna Rose) wrote in
news:fc.003d0941019e889d3b9aca0083c53104.19e8971@p mug.org:

I read sometime last year that Australia has a crisis building. They
have been invaded by a tapeworm that eats earthworms and is becoming a
major problem. Without the earthworms, the soil is not being "worked"
and the agricultural industry is in jeopardy. Perhaps some of our
Aussie friends on the group can fill us in about the particulars of
that; I have lost track of the current status of that problem. Seems
logical to me that moles are not so discriminating in their food
supply that they would ignore tapeworms and starve, ya think?

don't know if this is what you are thinking of, but I saw on PBS (i think
it was Nova special on the origins of life, but it could have been
Nature) that England was invaded by a planarian (a flatworm?) from New
Zealand. Might have also hit the US. Details about it hunting
earthworms is similar.

-- Salty