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Have You Seen This Worm?

The hammerhead flatworm has caught many Southern gardeners off-guard. The slime-covered carnivorous creature with a head reminiscent of a hammerhead shark may seem like an innocuous curiosity, but its voracious appetite for earthworms has some worried.

Hosts Elizabeth Friend and Laura Pellicer speak with Jean-Lou Justine, a professor at the National Museum of Natural History in Paris, who documented the stealth spread of flatworms in France. Justine also rings the alarm about the New Guinea flatworm, another invasive species moving through the American South that has no known predators.

Elizabeth Friend grew up in North Carolina listening to public radio in the backseat of the family station wagon. She has been reporting and producing at WUNC since 2016, covering everything from Army history to armadillos. She's also the co-founder of the beloved summer event series Audio Under The Stars. In her spare time she enjoys exploring the outside world with her family, dabbling in esoteric crafts, and cheese.
Laura Pellicer is a digital reporter with WUNC’s small but intrepid digital news team.
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