Meet ‘Humbertium covidum.’ Newly found flatworm takes its name from COVID pandemic

Scientists who discovered two new types of hammerhead flatworms during the COVID-19 pandemic lockdown have dubbed one of the tiny creatures “Humbertium covidum.”

“We decided to name one of the species ‘covidum,’ paying homage to the victims of the pandemic,” Jean-Lou Justine of the Muséum National d’Histoire Naturelle in Paris, said in a news release.

Flatworms are small, alien-looking worms that prey on other worms, snails and slugs in the soil, The Washington Post reported. They are highly invasive.

Some hammerhead flatworms can reach up to 1 meter in size, but Humbertium covidum tops out at about 3 centimeters, a scientific paper by Justine and his team reported.

It has been found in Italy and France, though some records suggest it may also be found in Russia, China and Japan, the paper says. While some flatworms are extremely colorful, Humbertium covidum is metallic black with no stripes.

Scientists discovered Humbertium covidum and another new species, Diversibipalium mayottensis, during the pandemic lockdown.

“Due to the pandemic, during the lockdowns most of us were home, with our laboratory closed,” Justine said in the news release.

“No field expeditions were possible,” he said. “I convinced my colleagues to gather all the information we had about these flatworms, do the computer analyses, and finally write this very long paper.”

Scientists studied the anatomy and DNA of the flatworms to identify them as new species, the scientific paper said.

More than 395 million cases of COVID-19 have been confirmed worldwide with more than 5.7 million deaths as of Monday, Feb. 7, according to Johns Hopkins University. The United States has had more than 76 million confirmed cases with more than 902,000 deaths.

This story was originally published February 7, 2022 at 8:14 AM with the headline "Meet ‘Humbertium covidum.’ Newly found flatworm takes its name from COVID pandemic."