We have been on many, many walks through the local tracks, pathways, parks and valleys over the past few months and I have spent many an hour looking through the nettles for ladybirds. No luck.
Around two weeks ago we found one ladybird that was lying, deceased, on the pavement opposite our local park, but other than that not a peep.
Then, yesterday we went for another walk and I spotted three ladybirds near each other on the nettles. They looked unusual, different to the ladybirds we are used to seeing here. Instead of the pillar box red colouring, this was more orange and the dots were more numerous.
I had heard of an invasive species of ladybird some time ago but not noticed any differences until this year. The invasive species is overtaking our native ladybirds by eating their eggs, larvae and their food and then laying many many eggs of their own instead.
On the same walk we also came across this unusual bug. At first glance we thought it was a spider, but with only six legs it clearly falls into the insect family rather than the arachnids.
Next thought was a type of caterpillar, but it wasn’t long enough for that and the legs didn’t fit either. So I took a photo and decided to research it at home.
It turns out to be a larva of one of the harlequin ladybirds.
On our walk we saw three of the ladybirds and two of these larvae. Bearing in mind we were walking a very energetic staffie cross and therefore had little time to stand and explore the nettles, that is quite a find. It explains the lack of native ladybirds we had noticed.
These bugs are ferocious. They are harmless to us- the worst they could do is stain your clothes yellow- but they are cannibals, eating their own kind, pretend to be native ladybirds by copying their colouring and are difficult to control as their needs are so similar to those of our decreasing native ladybirds. Just look at these photos!
In reading up about these creatures, I found a passage that describes them as a ‘halloween bug’ because around that time of year they can be found in large numbers and have been known to invade people’s houses!
We have already had a home invasion of ants, flies keep coming in through the doors and windows and doing their geometry in the middle of each room. The last thing we need on top of that is an invasion of harlequin ladybirds! (not to mention the coronavirus this year too).
Heed this warning.
You might think that you are doing right by meddling, or that you have done no harm but this proves otherwise. You can't go into ana existing family and introduce a devastating change without fallout, pain, loss and heartache one one side and an earth shattering change on the other. Who knows what the long term effects will be.
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