Happy Halloween!

October 31, 2024

The moon behind the clouds in a spooky image.
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The moon behind the clouds in a spooky image at Crow’s Nest Preserve

By Daniel Barringer, Preserve Manager.

It’s a time of year when we enjoy frightful things, so how about this hammerhead flatworm, a three-lined planarian (Bipalium pennsylvanicum) below?

Three-lined planaria (a hammerhead worm) on a rock.

Photo by Daniel Barringer

Actually—I don’t find these frightening, merely interesting; these hammerhead flatworms don’t cause us harm. They’re not native, and they could be having some ecosystem impact if their population size grew large enough. They eat earthworms—themselves not native here—and it’s not really known what their populations are. And even if invasive that would not be a reason to demonize the species itself; they didn’t transport themselves halfway around the world on their own, and if successful here, that doesn’t make them evil.

Wanting to know how common hammerhead flatworms are in Pennsylvania is the reason that iMapInvasives included the species in this year’s Invasives Scavenger Hunt. If found during the month of August we participants could record it on the iMaInvasives website. I didn’t find any during that month, not surprising since it was so dry, and you usually see these when it’s wet. But I had seen them previously and just found this photo I took along our front walk in 2018.

If you’d like to learn more about hammerhead flatworms look at this Penn State Extension web page.

next post

More Red-headed Woodpeckers

October 28, 2024

It was 2013 when we last saw Red-headed Woodpeckers in large numbers at Crow’s Nest Preserve. Visitors flocked to the preserve to see them.

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