That innocent looking slimy Garden Flatworm(Planaria)

This (non-gender) but still will call him fella' is one of your garden's worst enemies if you live in a fairly warm climate or have a greenhouse up north! It's official name is Bipalium kewense (the latter part of the name because it was first discovered in a greenhouse at Kew Gardens.) It is believed to have originated from Indo-China and the rest...blah, blah blah you can get from the following web site including some interesting pics! He is potentially your worst garden enemy because everything in your garden depends upon your soil. If something begins to mess with the vital organisms to a healthy soil then this leads to all the more sterile, unhealthy conditions to the soil. We have only begun to tap the complexity of the interaction between microbes, fungi, and higher organisms that live either in or on the surface of the soil. One thing is for certain that if there are fewer earthworms and similar creatures which are the main diet of these planaria there is going to be a serious disruption in microbial, fungal, and things like protozoa, beneficial nematodes, tiny arthropods, and crustacea to name a few!
Here is a realy good web site to go to:

http://entomology.ifas.ufl.edu/creatures/misc/land_planarians.htm

Here is a shot of how I found the two planaria...I am sure that they were not having sex! Mouth/anus of this creature is found towards the middle of the body. They are apparantly cannabilistic and this finding in my garden really supports that! The garden slug is shown for comparison. I have found these guys consuming earthworms before so I certainly can vouch for this behaviour as well!

Take a good look at this face as it is up there with the most wanted garden criminal list!

I find it most frequently on the surface of moist ground under, boards, logs, wood piles, rocks, flower pots and under mulch and compost. Planaria have a remarkable ability to regenerate themselves so disposing them in something toxic to their membranes like vinegar or maybe salt will do but is not good for your garden. They probably can survive a considerable amount of dehydration so do not just throw them into the garbage can!

I have tried to keep my blog positive and as exciting as possible to all of you nature lovers out there but some things like this just cannot be avoided. It is too bad that this is another one of nature's critters that was always in balance until we came along and it has followed us around most of the world and is now so unnecessarily out of place! All criticisms aside; I think that they are otherwise really neat creatures!

A quick note as per the use of vinegar. It is an immediate and effective way of totally demolishing a planaria! I tried sort of bunching up a planaria in the palm of my hand and added three drops of cider vinegar. There was the equivialant of a knee-jerk reaction and it was all over! I touched the former planaria and it was literally a mass of mush! The vinegar apparantly totally disrupts the cell walls of its outer mucous membrane like exterior so that it is no longer an intact functioning group of cells...thus the mass of goup left over!

Michael/natureguy