Platydemus manokwari

Terrestrial flatworms are normally detected by day by hand picking in moist microhabitats. Flatworms emerge at night to hunt and can be found with the aid of a spotlight or headlamp. Trapping methods for flatworms include laying plantain leaves or small boards directly on the ground;wetting areas of dry soil and covering these with a damp board (Ogren, 1955);or using a ceramic tile backed with 5 mm of polystyrene placed tile-down on the ground (Blackshaw, 1990). Polythene bags, 22 cm², and each filled with 1.5 kg of sand, were used to provide an artificial habitat to trap flatworms in New Zealand (Yeates et al., 1998), and conventional pitfall traps were successfully used in Tasmania to trap flatworms in a button grass habitat. Terricola can be extracted from soil samples using a 100 watt light bulb as a heat source (Ogren, 1955), but generally are not collected from soil or litter using dry extraction methods such as Berlese-funnel extractors. Extracting Terricola from soil samples using wet extractors such as those of Macfayden or Kempson (in Southwood, 1966) have potential, but appear not to have been reported. On-site formalin extraction (application rate of 4.5 litres of 0.2% formaldehyde per 1.2 m² quadrat, after Raw, 1959) was effective to a depth of at least 30 cm;the irritant bringing to the surface all specimens of a soil-dwelling flatworm species (Blackshaw and Stewart, 1992).
Bait traps can be useful for the detection of P. manokwari. Sugiura et al. (2006) placed land snails in 2-mm mesh nylon bags (approximately 30 x 25 cm) that allowed the entry of P. manokwari but not the escape of the snails. Five live land snails were placed as bait in each bag. When they checked bags three days after placement, they could find P. manokwari invading bags.