Giant worms”hammer” captured France, say environmentalists
MOSCOW, may 23 — RIA Novosti. France was “occupied” a large number of giant worms-Molotov, got there from the overseas territories in Asia and Africa, along with ornamental plants, according to a paper published in the journal PeerJ.
Pictures of these worms was walking throughout the network, until they came to me in the mail. I looked at them and immediately said — this is a joke or fake, these animals in France does not exist. Now we have managed to gather all the evidence that invasive species worms “took” all parts of France.Jean-Lou Justine (Jean-Lou Joustine)Scientist from the National Museum of natural history in Paris (France)
The so-called invasive species into new areas and continents thanks to the unconscious “assistance” on the part of man, is one of the main problems for the Earth’s environment today. For example, the penetration of Brazilian fire ants in the U.S. has caused the environmental catastrophe that destroyed several types of snails, and markedly reduced the abundance of other insects and even mammals.
The penetration of the African fungus Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis in Europe, America and Asia destroyed dozens of species of frogs and other amphibians, and the emergence of Colorado potato beetle in Russia and other countries in the mid 60’s of the last century was a great tragedy for farms and households.
Justine and his colleagues found that globalization and increased international trade contribute to the spread of even the most unusual and relatively rare animals by analyzing the photos taken by Pierre Grosso, a naturalist-Amateur five years ago.
Giant predatory worms invading France and threatening local wildlife https://t.co/cRUIwr4tRB
Creatures that grow up to 40cm have been living virtually unnoticed across the region for decades pic.twitter.com/hQIT2NTBJs
— Svein T veitdal (@tveitdal) May 23, 2018
Walking through his garden, Gros noticed some unusually large flat worms, crawling on the ground, which caused him to get a digital camera to photograph them and send pictures of the different scientists.
When the photos came to Justine, he didn’t believe Grosu and asked him to take some new pictures of the worms. On these cards the biologist saw three species of invertebrates, not living in France that forced him to go on a visit to the naturalist and to check whether he is cheating on him. It turned out that the worms really existed.
Giant Hammerhead Worms Have Been Invading France for Decades https://t.co/TD7eWHMNMZ
— Hira Ansari (@hiraansaripk) May 23, 2018
The next five years, Justine and Gros spent on trips to different parts of France and other colonies of worms,”aliens”, and the search for traces of them in notes of other nature lovers.
It turned out that these invertebrates have begun to penetrate into the country almost 20 years ago, approximately 1999, and to date, they “seized” the entire territory of the Republic.
The largest and most notable of these are the so-called worms hammers (Diversibipalium) is a large predatory invertebrates that live in the forests of Asia and East Africa. Under favorable environmental conditions they can grow to a length of 40-50 cm and in the absence of natural enemies they are a major threat to the stability of local ecosystems.
Interestingly, genomes of the same species of worms from different parts of France were virtually identical to each other, which suggests that while these invertebrates reproduce asexually, giving rise to many clones of themselves.