[Welsh Girls Allotment]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/6128042.stm

http://www.ladybird-survey.org

http://www.harlequin-survey.org

they also come in many different guises ...

http://www.wildlifetrust.org.uk/cheshire/news_ladybird

they also attack lace wings and hover flies - squishing seems perfectly reasonable to me  

[jacnal]

i have hundreds of ladybirds. unfortunately the majority are not natives. i had a look on a ladybird site and isentified them as harlequins. i informed the people about the explosion in numbers and they never got back to me. wwaht's the done thing here? are they that bad?

I've loads of ladybirds too, and I'm afraid some are harlequins. I on the other hand found the people very helpful! They said not to kill them, due to potential misidentification, and that they're looking into control methods for them. Here's a  link to my post about them, and a link within that for identification. http://jacnal.blogspot.com/2007/06/omg-i-think-we-might-have-dreaded.html

Sorry, I don't know how to do hyperlink here yet!

[Welsh Girls Allotment]

oops have made the links work now - the last one shows you all of the different colours and markings they have - helpful as they come in many guises  

[WG.]

Introduced from Asia into North America to control plant pests, the harlequin has spread across the states, becoming by far the commonest ladybird in less than 20 years.

When will they stop messing about with nature  :evil:  :evil:  :evil:

[percy thrower's cat]

"They come to houses in very large numbers at this time of year and they have stuff called reflex blood, which is yellow fluid which can stain furnishings and really cause quite a nuisance in the house."
that's from the bbc page above.

blimey! that will have them spilling their tea in the home counties..." call out the home guard!!"

seriously though, thanks for all the info.

[richyrich7]

Introduced from Asia into North America to control plant pests, the harlequin has spread across the states, becoming by far the commonest ladybird in less than 20 years.

When will they stop messing about with nature  :evil:  :evil:  :evil:

When they've turned the planet into a wasteland and we've all starved to death, then they just might stop WG.

[Nugget]

i noticed loads of ladybirds, lucky really because my broad beans are covered in blackfly  

[Ann]

I have only come across 1 ladybird in the garden

[starmoonlilly]

Where about in the midlands are you?I have seen about 3 ladybirds all year and use no sprays etc.I can supply aphids and have room for ladybirds! A touch of envy here! :mrgreen:

Im in Northampton Annie, I think most of them must have gone in search of food, Ive only seen 5 today. But it is cold and very wet.

jacnal, thats a great piccie if the 'thingy' stage. I didnt realise they were different. I will look out for them now.

Its really important to get the ID right, some of the variations are very hard to distinguish, and very pretty some of them.

Apparantly they are still being sold in some parts of europe as a control.  :evil:

They can be very aggressive towards us and other benificial insects, much more active and very quick. I found 3 in my bathroom in the spring and took them to the BTVC for the experts to identify, I heard nothing back. If we are to help it would be nice if we got info when we asked for it.

I squish the ones Im sure of :evil:    

[ziggywigs]

I emailed the Ladybird Survey folk and this was their response:

We do not recommend killing any ladybirds and although this is partly because of the risk of native species being misidentified as harlequins, also any that are killed will unfortunately make very little difference to the population.

Unfortunately there is currently no effective control method that will only target harlequins.  However, research is being done to try and develop one (possibly using a pheromone that only attracts this species).

If one a ladybird attacks me it will be squished pretty quickly though!

[starmoonlilly]

Thanks for posting that ziggywigs, they are difficult to tell apart. They gave good advice there.

I hope they come up with this pheromone soon, sales need to be banned too

[flowerlady]

:?  I'm quite convinced that we have Harliquins    and they are BIG !!!

... and yes we have had an explosion! ... And all because they were imported via Covent Garden Fruit & Veg Market !!  :shock:  :?  

[Aidy]

Got loads of ladybirds this year and so far all native, been looking this weekend, also got the school involved, teacher thought great idea so we had the kids out yesterday in the wild garden checking and again all native so far.

[djbnat]

The only two ladybirds on my broad beans were too busy making more ladybirds to trouble the blackfly - maybe they were saving them for pudding!!! :shock:  
Regards
DJB