New species of flatworm invading the United States

A new species of flatworm has been discovered and has already invaded several states in the southern United States. The particularity of the new species is that it looks a lot like Obama nungara, a species that has invaded much of Europe. The new species has been named Amaga pseudobama in reference to this resemblance.

An international team reports the discovery of a new species of flatworm. The team includes researchers from National Museum of Natural History in Paris, France, Drexel University and North Carolina State University in the United States, James Cook University in Australia and University of Szczecin in Poland. The new species, first spotted in North Carolina in 2020, is a flatworm, brown in color, a few centimeters in length.

The first information received about this species was photos, and the researchers then believed that the specimens belonged to the species Obama nungara, an invasive species native to Brazil and Argentina that has invaded much of Europe. After a molecular study, delayed by the lockdowns of 2020, it became clear that the species was very different from Obama nungara. The researchers then carried out a detailed morphological analysis and a molecular study, including the description of the complete mitogenome, and have now described the species found in the United States under the name Amaga pseudobama, to mark its resemblance to Obama nungara. Like Obama nungara, the new species Amaga pseudobama comes from South America; however, it has never been seen or analyzed in South America. Apart from North Carolina, the species is also present in Florida, Georgia, and may have already invaded other states. This new species joins other invasive flatworm species discovered in the Southern United States, including Platydemus manokwari.

The resemblance of Amaga pseudobama to Obama nungara will be an obstacle to understanding the distribution of the species from citizen science data, which is usually based on photos taken by members of the public, since it will be impossible to distinguish the two species.

Reference: Justine, J.-L., Gastineau, R., Gey, D., Robinson, D. G., Bertone, M. A. & Winsor, L. (2024) A new species of alien flatworm in the Southern United States. PeerJ, 12, e17904. http://doi.org/10.7717/peerj.17904