Harlequin Ladybirds

[bootie]

I heard on the radio today about the threat to our species of ladybirds
It seems that they outeat our L/bs leaving them with nothing.
They are orange with black spots.!!

Bear with me if this was an earlier thread

[monkeybum]

We had loads of really strange looking orange ones in the garden this year but I only saw 2 red and black ones all summer. I guess thats natural selection for you!

[bramble]

They are bigger and have a lot more spots.

[kirsty b]

I read something about them on a previous thread a couple of weeks ago. You can find pics of them if you do a search. They also show pics of all the British native species too.

[rustylady]

Be very careful, though, our native ladybirds have all sorts of different colour and spot combinations.

Daughter found a strange one, imprisoned it within a glass jar, did research on internet and found it was a native pine ladybird. Rushed to lottie shed to free it

[FoxHillGardener]

There are some pictures for idnetification here

http://www.harlequin-survey.org/reco...istinction.htm

You can also log sightings of them on the same site

[monkeybum]

The strangest one I saw was orange but had only one spot. Half on each wing. I can't see that one in the link but it must be native.

[Nicos]

I think you have to judge from their size- I think harlequins are much bigger than natives.
The worry is that people might kill native ones off by mistake, thinking they are helping.
I think it will just be a matter of time before they take over and yet another species hits the dust. We might be able to slow things down a little....

[Earthbabe]

That was a really useful site FHG. I think I saw a couple at my daughter's school but there were also some native and some larvae. They look a bit more difficult to tell apart. I've saved the link for future reference.

Thank you.