This attractively coloured little beetle is the Harlequin Ladybird that you may have heard about (again) yesterday in the news. We’ve seen them here at LDNP several times before over the last couple of years and postulated on whether they really are a threat to the native species. Well, the latest thinking from those researching the rapid spread of this species is that it is indeed a threat and not just to our native Ladybirds but to a 1,000 native species. What we’re supposed to do about it is another matter, they do not recommend squashing them as they’re somewhat concerned that misidentified native species may also be squished by mistake. There is talk of a sexually transmitted mite that renders the females infertile…..more on that and the rest of the story from the Beeb here.
Though we do have a lot of Harlequins around here we still appear to have many native Ladybirds too so far. All, however, seem to have been a bit out of synch with the enormous numbers of black-fly we had a few weeks ago, the Ladybirds arriving too late for many of our broad beans.
Did you, too, hear the news clip: "The harlequin ladybird is spreading all over the country from Essex".
There's the trouble, these are the Essex Girls of the insect world. Simple way to catch them all, put a handbag down in hte middle of your garden.
Thankfully most of the ladybirds I've seen this year haven't been these.
It's been a really bad year for blackfly. So much so that I gave up with my broad beans!
Indeed Ham 😉 Essex eh? Hmmm.
We did on our later ones too Flighty, very sad.
I've seen very few ladybirds of any type at all this year. A few early on but none for weeks. Hence our huge blackfly and greenfly populations methinks.