The message
from Malcolm contains these words:

It's odd, isn't it, that we find slimy things a cause for "yuck". I have
no phobias involving wildlife but I still prefer not to pick slugs up in
my bare fingers.

If you think slugs are horrible, try NZ flatworms :-(.Even slimier. In
fact, don't pick them up with bare hands because their copious slime is
supposed to damage skin...maybe it's starting to digest it, like it does
earthworms.

NZ Flatworms arrived on Arran about 4 years ago. John found our first
one in the garden about a fortnight ago; at full stretch it was 5" long,
dark brown on top, pale and spotty beneath, and, well, flat and wide,
with a distinct topside and underside, not round like earthworms. It
looks far more like a leech than a worm. NZF's are a Bad Thing because
they predate UK native earthworms which are essential to healthy soil.
Following advice I searched every pot inside and out and under every
stone, compost bag etc, looking for more, with no result; so I hoped it
was a one-off which had arrived with a plant, and resolved to be more
careful at checking purchases in future. Apparently they are so
heat-sensitive that 30 degrees C will kill them; so standing a potted
plant in hand hot water for a while should do the trick (I haven't tried
this out yet to see if the flatworms have read the same website).

Today I had a nasty find. A few weeks back, I'd peeled off a lot of
lawn turf to make a new bed, and only got round to shifting the turves
today.First thing I noticed was the very large number of earthworms
active in the loosely stacked turves; most gratifying. Second thing I
spotted was another damn flatworm..then another and another. In the end
I found 12, all curled up on the turf undersides. Unlike earthworms,
they are as slow as slugs and don't seem able to burrow to safety down a
hole, so catching them is easy.

It occurred to me that buying turves for your lawn might be a very
good way of importing NZ flatworms to your garden....so take care.

Janet. (Isle of Arran).

"Janet wrote in message

If you think slugs are horrible, try NZ flatworms :-(.Even slimier. In
fact, don't pick them up with bare hands because their copious slime is
supposed to damage skin...maybe it's starting to digest it, like it does
earthworms.

NZ Flatworms arrived on Arran about 4 years ago. John found our first
one in the garden about a fortnight ago; at full stretch it was 5" long,
dark brown on top, pale and spotty beneath, and, well, flat and wide,
with a distinct topside and underside, not round like earthworms. It
looks far more like a leech than a worm. NZF's are a Bad Thing because
they predate UK native earthworms which are essential to healthy soil.
Following advice I searched every pot inside and out and under every
stone, compost bag etc, looking for more, with no result; so I hoped it
was a one-off which had arrived with a plant, and resolved to be more
careful at checking purchases in future. Apparently they are so
heat-sensitive that 30 degrees C will kill them; so standing a potted
plant in hand hot water for a while should do the trick (I haven't tried
this out yet to see if the flatworms have read the same website).

Today I had a nasty find. A few weeks back, I'd peeled off a lot of
lawn turf to make a new bed, and only got round to shifting the turves
today.First thing I noticed was the very large number of earthworms
active in the loosely stacked turves; most gratifying. Second thing I
spotted was another damn flatworm..then another and another. In the end
I found 12, all curled up on the turf undersides. Unlike earthworms,
they are as slow as slugs and don't seem able to burrow to safety down a
hole, so catching them is easy.

It occurred to me that buying turves for your lawn might be a very
good way of importing NZ flatworms to your garden....so take care.

Take a look at www.hdra.org.uk/factsheets/pc21.htm for more information,
and have you reported your find?

--
Regards
Bob

Use a useful Screen Saver...
http://setiathome.ssl.berkeley.edu/
and find intelligent life amongst the stars, there's bugger all down here.

Janet Baraclough wrote:
The message
from Malcolm contains these words:

It's odd, isn't it, that we find slimy things a cause for "yuck". I
have no phobias involving wildlife but I still prefer not to pick
slugs up in my bare fingers.

If you think slugs are horrible, try NZ flatworms :-(.Even
slimier.
In fact, don't pick them up with bare hands because their copious
slime is supposed to damage skin...maybe it's starting to digest it,
like it does earthworms.

NZ Flatworms arrived on Arran about 4 years ago.
snip
Apparently they are so heat-sensitive that 30 degrees C
will kill them; so standing a potted plant in hand hot water for a
while should do the trick (I haven't tried this out yet to see if
the
flatworms have read the same website).

My first - and only, encounter with NZFs was back around 1980 in
Edinburgh.
Never having seen anything like it, I took the first specimen along to
Edin. Uni. Biology Dept who identified it as Artioposthia triangulata
and eagerly took all the details and pickled the specimen.
And that was that - or so I thought. Next spring my greenhouse was
alive with the things under growbags.
They may succumb to 30deg C but they can survive 0 deg C. My original
find was in an ice encrusted plant which I had taken into the
greenhouse. I thought it was a piece of chewing gum, flat and white,
but in the course of a few hours it had transmogrified into the liver
coloured flatworm which curled up like a watch spring.
All sorts of horrendous portents were predicted at the time but, I am
happy to say that they still have earthworms in Edinburgh.

--
ned

In article , Janet Baraclough
writes
The message
from Malcolm contains these words:

It's odd, isn't it, that we find slimy things a cause for "yuck". I have
no phobias involving wildlife but I still prefer not to pick slugs up in
my bare fingers.

If you think slugs are horrible, try NZ flatworms :-(.Even slimier. In
fact, don't pick them up with bare hands because their copious slime is
supposed to damage skin...maybe it's starting to digest it, like it does
earthworms.

snip

NZ Flatworms arrived on Arran about 4 years ago.

They've never damaged me when I've handled them though I agree about the
amount of slime. NZ flatworms were first found on Islay in the late
1980s and are presumably still here, though fortunately not in my
garden.

It occurred to me that buying turves for your lawn might be a very
good way of importing NZ flatworms to your garden....so take care.

Any soil you bring in, whether turves or pot plants, the latter probably
the most common method of transport.

For anyone wanting to know more, see:

http://www.defra.gov.uk/planth/pestnote/flat.htm

which includes addresses to which to send suspected ones for
identification.

--
Malcolm

In article , Malcolm
writes

In article , Janet Baraclough
writes

NZ Flatworms arrived on Arran about 4 years ago.

They've never damaged me when I've handled them though I agree about the
amount of slime. NZ flatworms were first found on Islay in the late
1980s and are presumably still here, though fortunately not in my
garden.

Are they causing as much devastation as was expected? The furore seems
to have died down somewhat. They co-exist with earthworms in NZ.
--
Kay Easton

Edward's earthworm page:
http://www.scarboro.demon.co.uk/edward/index.htm

In article , Kay Easton
writes
In article , Malcolm
writes

In article , Janet Baraclough
writes

NZ Flatworms arrived on Arran about 4 years ago.

They've never damaged me when I've handled them though I agree about the
amount of slime. NZ flatworms were first found on Islay in the late
1980s and are presumably still here, though fortunately not in my
garden.

Are they causing as much devastation as was expected? The furore seems
to have died down somewhat. They co-exist with earthworms in NZ.

This from the Central Science Lab website:

"In Scotland, A. triangulatus occurs predominantly in botanical and
domestic gardens, and currently is not generally considered to be a
problem on agricultural land. In Northern Ireland it is found in
domestic gardens but also appears to have colonized grass leys in many
localities.

However, its impact on earthworm populations remains ambiguous, with
evidence of numbers in areas with large NZF populations being reduced
temporarily before recovering to levels recorded prior to invasion.
Other studies have suggested a differential susceptibility of earthworm
species to A. triangulatus predation, with recovering populations
exhibiting an altered species profile. Results of a large-scale survey
of earthworms and A. triangulatus populations in grass fields in
Northern Ireland has shown a marked increase in occurrence of NZF's,
particularly in field margins."


Have a look at the website:

http://www.csl.gov.uk/resdev/environ...ject/index.htm

for lots more information. Click on "Project information" which takes
you to a page with a link to a long (65-page) downloadable final report
on a detailed study of them.

--
Malcolm

In article , Malcolm
writes

"In Scotland, A. triangulatus occurs predominantly in botanical and
domestic gardens, and currently is not generally considered to be a
problem on agricultural land. In Northern Ireland it is found in
domestic gardens but also appears to have colonized grass leys in many
localities.

However, its impact on earthworm populations remains ambiguous, with
evidence of numbers in areas with large NZF populations being reduced
temporarily before recovering to levels recorded prior to invasion.
Other studies have suggested a differential susceptibility of earthworm
species to A. triangulatus predation, with recovering populations
exhibiting an altered species profile. Results of a large-scale survey
of earthworms and A. triangulatus populations in grass fields in
Northern Ireland has shown a marked increase in occurrence of NZF's,
particularly in field margins."


Have a look at the website:

http://www.csl.gov.uk/resdev/environ...ject/index.htm

Thanks :-)
--
Kay Easton

Edward's earthworm page:
http://www.scarboro.demon.co.uk/edward/index.htm

Malcolm wrote:

snip
Any soil you bring in, whether turves or pot plants, the latter
probably the most common method of transport.


Back in 1980, when the problem was relatively new, the advice I was
given was that I had probably picked one up in the wheelarch of my car
while travelling through the Carlisle area (there was a known
'infestation' there at that time). The first one I discovered was in
the flower border adjacent to my garage driveway.

--
ned

The message
from "Sue & Bob Hobden" contains these words:

Take a look at www.hdra.org.uk/factsheets/pc21.htm for more information,
and have you reported your find?

I didn't report the first, but shall now that I've found more.

Janet.

The message
from Kay Easton contains these words:

Are they causing as much devastation as was expected? The furore seems
to have died down somewhat. They co-exist with earthworms in NZ.

Reportedly, they have not had the impact in the UK that was feared.
The HDRA website claims that a flatworm only eats two earthworms a week
and can go months between meals if none appear. Perhaps in summer when
earthworms are at their most active, flatworms are far more at risk from
hot weather or soil dryness, so are unlikely to multiply faster than
their food source?

According to the head gardener at Brodick Castle some have been
reported on Arran before, but they don't appear to have spread far. I
took our first one to show a meeting of the island's garden club..about
50 keen gardeners. None of them had ever seen an NZF before, and all had
plentiful supplies of earthworms in their gardens.

Janet.