I am an emeritus Professor of Biology, Wilkes University, retired since 1986. For biographical information you may visit our family Home Page at URL [www.ogren.org/robert.htm] and refer to Who's Who in America as well as American Men and Women of Science. My home is in Kingston, Pa and my email is: [REOgren@compuserve.com]. I wish to introduce you to an interesting group of Invertebrate organisms known as flatworms, or planarians which I have been investigating since graduate school at University of Illinois 50 years ago. Many planarians have soft, flattened or slightly rounded bodies. They lack annular body segments, legs or appendages, and mouth is typically in midbody. They belong, from a technical vieiwpoint, to the Phylum: Platyhelminthes, viz., from the Greek words, platys, meaning flat and helminthos, meaning worm. There are many groups of flatworms living in fresh-water of lakes & streams, in marine habitats and as part of the soil or terrestrial biota, where they are classified as land planarians or Terricola. The word terrestrial has as one of its meanings, living on land. It is also derived from the Latin word terrestris, and terra meaning earth. Land planarians belong to the earth biota and are classified under the fancy name of the Terricola, which means living on land (terra= earth, cola= to inhabit). In their soil habitat, land planarians may be found under rocks and logs or in the soil of residential gardens. Here they are part of the interesting soil community and a predators there on earthworms (Oligochaeta), molluscs (snails). One purpose of this page is to assist in discovery and identification of this group of Invertebrates. Land flatworms can literally be underfoot. A cartoon by a friend illustrates this. However, the shapes of the worms are fanciful. It is true that I kept finding planarians for study in my own garden and backyard. Thus, the title "Ogren's Garden". For a while I had both Bipalium adventitium and the two lined worm Rhynchodemus sylvaticus. Robert E. Ogren, Ph.D- Zoologist Kingston, Pa.18704 [E-mail: REOgren@compuserve.com] Use this E-mail:<ogrenrobert@Hotmail.com>

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