Don't trust his innocent sluggish air. Because behind his slimy, harmless body, Obama Nungara is a predator. The worst kind of earthworm killer. It was in 2013 that the first reports of its presence in France went back to scientists.
After seven years of research, the National Museum of Natural History publishes this Thursday the first comprehensive study on this "new invader" which has a voracious appetite for worms and snails in our gardens. From the Plathelminth family, this flatworm from Argentina has "invaded" according to scientists "72 of the 96 departments of metropolitan France", or three quarters of the surface of the territory. It is particularly abundant along the Atlantic and Mediterranean coasts and seems to prefer low altitudes.
"It feeds on earthworms, useful for soils"
"The great dispersion of the species and its local abundance, but also the fact that it is a predator of soil animals, make Obama Nungara a potential threat to biodiversity and soil ecology in Europe", underlines the Museum. The study authors even believe that it is "the most worrying species of all the invasive terrestrial flatworms present" on the old continent.
"The Nungara obama feeds in particular on earthworms which are very very useful for our soils", decrypts the researcher Jean-Lou Justine, principal author of the study. By digging vertical galleries in the earth, the worms aerate the soil, bring oxygen to it, allow water to enter it and have an essential action on the surface by nibbling on decaying plants.
By attacking them, the plathelminths therefore prevent them from naturally fertilizing our basements. "They themselves are unable to dig galleries", underlines Jean-Lou Justine. The Museum asked amateur gardeners to keep an eye on this "worm killer". And they were surprised to discover that it is now present everywhere and in numbers. "Even in a small garden, you can pick up hundreds," says the Museum's zoologist.
"No chemical approved to fight it"
It was the Brazilians who, in 2013, baptized him Obama: a contraction of the Indian words "Oba" and "Ma", which mean flat like a leaf. The species, now present in Portugal, Spain, Italy, the United Kingdom and Belgium, is said to have arrived in France via the trade in potted plants.
"There is currently no chemical approved to fight it," explains Jean-Lou Justine. The scientist believes that "only European action" and the classification of Obama Nungara on the list of invasive species would make it possible to set up action at EU level.
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