Land flatworms (Tricladida: Geoplanidae) in France and French overseas territories: ten years of research Author Justine, Jean-Lou ISYEB, Institut de Systématique, Évolution, Biodiversité (UMR 7205 CNRS, EPHE, MNHN, UPMC, Université des Author Gastineau, Romain Institute of Marine and Environmental Sciences, University of Szczecin, Szczecin, Poland. justine@mnhn.fr Author Winsor, Leigh College of Science and Engineering, James Cook University of North Queensland, Townsville, Queensland, Australia Corresponding author: Jean-Lou Justine (justine @ mnhn. fr) text Zoologia 2024 e 24004 2024-11-29 41 1 25 https://doi.org/10.1590/s1984-4689.v41.e24004 journal article 10.1590/S1984-4689.v41.e24004 1984-4689 14700473 Bipalium kewense Bipalium kewense ( Figs 8–10 ) is well known as a species that has invaded most tropical or subtropical regions of the world, particularly through plant transport ( Winsor 1983 ), probably including, in the early stages, “Ward’s Boxes” used to transport exotic plants ( Keogh 2020 ). For B. kewense , we have received two types of reports for mainland France : a few reports in greenhouses, which have no biogeographical value, and to our surprise numerous reports in open environments, within gardens. The citizen science reports spanned around 20 years, the most emblematic being from an individual who kept an old VHS tape showing the family being surprised by the presence of a large worm in their garden ( Justine et al. 2018b ). Reports in gardens are restricted to a small coastal strip along the Mediterranean coast and to a wider area along the Atlantic coast that corresponds to the department of Pyrénées-Atlantiques ( Fig. 10 ). These zones correspond to the hottest regions of mainland France and, for the Pyrénées-Atlantiques, to a warm region but where summer is never completely dry. Citizen science accounts report that in order to escape the cold in winter, this species buries itself up to twenty centimeters deep in the soil. Outside of mainland France , B. kewense is also known from the French Caribbean ( Guadeloupe , Martinique , and Saint Martin ), French Guiana, Reunion Island , and French Polynesia ( Justine et al. 2018b ), regions whose climate better corresponds to its area of origin in Southeast Asia than to mainland France . New records are regularly published from various tropical and semitropical countries ( Agnolin et al. 2019 , Borge Medina and Nuñez Martinez 2021 , de Luna et al. 2022 , Morffe et al. 2016 , Mori et al. 2023 , RodrÍguez-Cabrera and Torres 2019 ). Figure 7. Climatic suitability of Obama nungara on Reunion Island, Indian Ocean. The three localities where the specimens were found (Petite France, Plaine des Grègues, and Gîte de la Bergerie) are indicated. From Justine et al. (2022b). Genetic studies on B. kewense showed that specimens collected on several continents had exactly the same cox1 sequence ( Justine et al. 2018b ). This suggests that all the collected individuals, which reproduce asexually and have no sexual organs, are in fact a clone, or, in other words, that a single individual has invaded several continents. However, our studies were limited to a single gene. Bipalium kewense is also the first species for which we obtained a complete mito - genome ( Gastineau et al. 2019 ) and, as such, was the starting point for our genomic investigations on the Geoplanidae .