Harlequin ladybirds
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Louloubelle
Well-Known Member
Geri said:
WTF has racism got to do with squirrels?
They're an invasive pest species that are slowly killing of our native species and will push them to extinction unless they're stopped. They also destroy young forests by stripping the bark from saplings. They can't help it, they're just squirrels, but they are a pest, just like rats or mice and they should be culled.
Fortunately they taste nice so the solution to this problem is pretty obvious. IMO
Minnie_the_Minx
someinenhhanding menbag and me ah bollox
Louloubelle said:WTF has racism got to do with squirrels?
Squirrels are fluffy pigeons without wings really and people eat pigeon pie
frogwoman
Let them eat newts
Louloubelle said:WTF has racism got to do with squirrels?
They're an invasive pest species that are slowly killing of our native species and will push them to extinction unless they're stopped. They also destroy young forests by stripping the bark from saplings. They can't help it, they're just squirrels, but they are a pest, just like rats or mice and they should be culled.
Fortunately they taste nice so the solution to this problem is pretty obvious. IMO
Talking of red squirrels I was in Bracknell a while ago and I saw a beautiful red one
x
butterfly child
Well-Known Member
frogwoman said:I squashed a few today, the rest are in a little box next to me and i'm going to photograph them and put them down the loo after that.
I was quite pleased because I saw a few native ladybirds today and yesterday including a rather rare one
butterfly child
Well-Known Member
frogwoman said:
I doubt your single, solitary actions will make much difference in the overall scheme of things though.
frogwoman
Let them eat newts
ok i just heard something really horrible
Apparently two-spot ladybirds (also black four-spots, because they're really the same species) are susceptible to a sexually transmitted infection which leaves them infertile In some areas 90% of these ladybirds are infected with this thing. When you consider that the harlequin ladybirds eat the larvae and eggs of other ladybirds ... well 
Apparently two-spot ladybirds (also black four-spots, because they're really the same species) are susceptible to a sexually transmitted infection which leaves them infertile
In some areas 90% of these ladybirds are infected with this thing. When you consider that the harlequin ladybirds eat the larvae and eggs of other ladybirds ... well 
bluestreak
HomosexualityIsStalin’sAtomBombtoDestroyAmerica
see what happens when you don't use condoms
Louloubelle
Well-Known Member
frogwoman said:Fuck loulou ... i see what you mean now
I'd feel terrible if I found out I'd killed one of those by accident
that's an eye ladybird yes?
I don't think you would have mistaken one of the m for a harlequin, the yellow aura around their spots is very distinctive
the other photos are lovely
I saw a few 22 spot ladybirds, the yellow ones, at the women's pond recently
If you're not sure about a ladybird then just keep it in a tupperware thing while you check it out and can ID it properly
frogwoman
Let them eat newts
Yeah it is. I've never seen one before. I'd love to see one.
I didn't take those pics btw - i found them on the net. I had a whole bunch of harlequins at the weekend but I couldn't get the camera to closeup.
Found a couple of beautiful ones at the weekend - tiny and looked like they were seven-spots, but obviously not because they were a different shape (and had a different number of spots).
I didn't take those pics btw - i found them on the net. I had a whole bunch of harlequins at the weekend but I couldn't get the camera to closeup.
Found a couple of beautiful ones at the weekend - tiny and looked like they were seven-spots, but obviously not because they were a different shape (and had a different number of spots).
frogwoman
Let them eat newts
Invasion of the harlequins and a threat to the survival of British ladybirds
The Asian species only arrived here three years ago, but it is already laying waste to its domestic relative. Now it may become a threat to birds and butterflies. By Michael McCarthy
Published: 13 July 2007
They said it would be bad. Well, it's worse. Britain's latest invasive species, the harlequin ladybird, is thought likely to harm at least 1,000 types of insects and other organisms as it rapidly spreads across the country.
Although it arrived in Britain only in September 2004, in Essex, it has reached Durham in the north, Cornwall in the south-west and Wales in the west, and has made a solid start on the process that entomologists have feared - ousting our native ladybird species.
Three weeks ago Britain's leading ladybird expert, Professor Michael Majerus of the University of Cambridge, surveyed three central London parks and found the harlequin, Harmonia axyridis, had already taken over to an astonishing degree.
In Hyde Park, Regent's Park and Battersea Park Gardens, 90 per cent of the ladybirds were harlequins, Professor Majerus said yesterday. Before their arrival there would have been a mixture of about 10 species, headed by the familiar two-spot ladybird, but now the harlequin was overwhelmingly predominant.
The UK arrival of the harlequin, an Asian species artificially introduced into the USA and continental Europe to control aphids on crops (aphids are many ladybirds' principal food) was greeted as a disaster by Professor Majerus and other experts.
Found in a variety of colours but often orange with black spots (or the other way round), it is a larger and more voracious creature than any of Britain's other 45 ladybird species, and has shown itself capable of outcompeting all rivals and driving them to scarcity and even extinction. In the US, where it was only found to be breeding in the wild in 1988, it is now the commonest ladybird.
It is thought to have arrived in Britain from The Netherlands, where it was used as a biological pest control. About half the British species - the ones which feed mainly on aphids - are thought to be at severe risk from its depredations, as the harlequin will simply out-eat them: a harlequin larva may eat 500 aphids, but an adult female may eat 5,000. Furthermore, it may not only out-eat them; it some cases, it will actually eat them.
But it doesn't stop there. Professor Majerus has calculated the "knock-on" effect of the arrival of Harmonia axyridis and he thinks that as many as 1,000 further organisms may be at risk of serious damage. They are firstly the other species, maybe 300 in total, which feed on aphids and the so-called scale insects (tiny pests) which the harlequin consumes - and then the smaller species which, in turn, are dependent on them.
For example, the two-spot ladybird, beloved of children, has a whole suite of organisms entirely dependent on it, including two species of parasitic wasp, three species of parasitic fly, a nematode worm, a sexually-transmitted mite, a sexually-transmitted fungus and four special species of bacteria - "and these are only the ones we know about," said Professor Majerus.
All are likely to severely affected as the two-spot declines, a process which the professor thinks will change it from being our second most-common species, to a scarce insect, and the knock-on affect mounts up rapidly. "I reckon 1,000 species in Britain alone will be negatively affected by the presence of the harlequin," he said.
Yet it will not only be at the microscopic level that the effects will be felt. In some circumstances, especially when there are no aphids, the harlequin will eat anything it comes across that it can, and this can include the eggs and the larvae of butterflies and moths, as well as of lacewings and hoverflies.
"A study in America has shown that two species of blue butterfly have declined substantially because of harlequin ladybirds eating their eggs as standby food," Professor Majerus said. "Some British butterflies and moths could well be at risk, but we do not yet know which, because no research has yet been done."
Even birds such as wrens, which are major consumers of aphids, might be at risk, he said.
If you're relaxing and thinking, this is all very well but none of it's going to affect me, think again. One of the worst habits of harlequin ladybirds is that they swarm, in immense numbers, and then find a suitable house to spend the winter. It could be yours.
The phenomenon started to happen in Britain last autumn as the population began to explode for the first time. It was particularly noticeable on the Isle of Wight, where in late October and early November, thousands of the insects came together in clouds on the island's south coast, smothering vegetation and covering outside walls and window frames. Walkers reported thousands more clogging up footpaths on Compton Down.
Professor Majerus's knowledge of harlequin swarming does not offer much comfort to householders. "I expect we will soon be seeing cases of swarms of thousands or even tens of thousands, in British houses," he said.
"What can you do about it? Say rude words. You can vacuum them up, but when you do they will 'reflex bleed' - they discharge this yellow stuff from their knees, which gets all over your carpets and curtains. A strong insecticide will kill them, but do you want that in your home?
"There is a recommendation on one US website that you paint your house in dark colours, especially purple, because when they go to overwinter they seem to be attracted by pale surfaces. Really, all you can do is hope for the best."
Professor Majerus, who is Professor of Evolution at Cambridge and works in the department of genetics, believes some of Britain's ladybird species may be driven to extinction by the harlequin, especially the five-spot ladybird, which lives on river shingles in Wales and Scotland and is already rare.
The effect on the two-spot and the 10-spot ladybirds will be "very dramatic", with substantial declines, he thinks. The two-spot, in particular, is "an absolutely direct competitor with virtually no defence."
The commonest British ladybird, the 16-spot, which is less familiar because it is small, is less at risk because it feeds on honeydew rather than aphids.
Ladybirds are one of our most popular insects. The naturalist Peter Marren is assembling a compendium of ladybird lore for the forthcoming Bugs Britannica, and points out that the best place to find ladybirds is in gardens.
The best spotters are children, he said, as the insects are small and bright and close to the ground - and children find none of that a problem.
Furthermore, he said, the most recent species to be discovered in Britain before the harlequin, the bryony ladybird (so-called because it feeds on the shrub white bryony), was discovered by a five-year-old girl, Alysia Menzies, in the garden of her home in West Molesey, Surrey. (Her grandfather, a ladybird expert, actually made the identification.)
It was because ladybirds are so widely seen as benign that the release of the harlequin (which is banned in Europe) was allowed without a licence for so long, said Professor Majerus.
It is a native of Asia, east of the Urals, with a range stretching as far as Japan, and it has caused such trouble in the countries of the West where it has been introduced because it has left its natural enemies behind.
This is known as the "enemy-escape hypothesis". In its natural habitat there will be other organisms that will keep its population in check.
Professor Majerus said that at the moment there is no known organism which could control the harlequin, but he is testing a mite which can cause infertility in Britain's two-spot ladybird.
If that could be used on the harlequin, it might be able to suppress the population, he said, "but I can see no way that we could get rid of the harlequin completely".
He added: "It's certainly one of the most damaging invasive species Britain has ever had, right up there with the coypu, the grey squirrel and the mink."
http://environment.independent.co.uk/nature/article2765580.ece
The Asian species only arrived here three years ago, but it is already laying waste to its domestic relative. Now it may become a threat to birds and butterflies. By Michael McCarthy
Published: 13 July 2007
They said it would be bad. Well, it's worse. Britain's latest invasive species, the harlequin ladybird, is thought likely to harm at least 1,000 types of insects and other organisms as it rapidly spreads across the country.
Although it arrived in Britain only in September 2004, in Essex, it has reached Durham in the north, Cornwall in the south-west and Wales in the west, and has made a solid start on the process that entomologists have feared - ousting our native ladybird species.
Three weeks ago Britain's leading ladybird expert, Professor Michael Majerus of the University of Cambridge, surveyed three central London parks and found the harlequin, Harmonia axyridis, had already taken over to an astonishing degree.
In Hyde Park, Regent's Park and Battersea Park Gardens, 90 per cent of the ladybirds were harlequins, Professor Majerus said yesterday. Before their arrival there would have been a mixture of about 10 species, headed by the familiar two-spot ladybird, but now the harlequin was overwhelmingly predominant.
The UK arrival of the harlequin, an Asian species artificially introduced into the USA and continental Europe to control aphids on crops (aphids are many ladybirds' principal food) was greeted as a disaster by Professor Majerus and other experts.
Found in a variety of colours but often orange with black spots (or the other way round), it is a larger and more voracious creature than any of Britain's other 45 ladybird species, and has shown itself capable of outcompeting all rivals and driving them to scarcity and even extinction. In the US, where it was only found to be breeding in the wild in 1988, it is now the commonest ladybird.
It is thought to have arrived in Britain from The Netherlands, where it was used as a biological pest control. About half the British species - the ones which feed mainly on aphids - are thought to be at severe risk from its depredations, as the harlequin will simply out-eat them: a harlequin larva may eat 500 aphids, but an adult female may eat 5,000. Furthermore, it may not only out-eat them; it some cases, it will actually eat them.
But it doesn't stop there. Professor Majerus has calculated the "knock-on" effect of the arrival of Harmonia axyridis and he thinks that as many as 1,000 further organisms may be at risk of serious damage. They are firstly the other species, maybe 300 in total, which feed on aphids and the so-called scale insects (tiny pests) which the harlequin consumes - and then the smaller species which, in turn, are dependent on them.
For example, the two-spot ladybird, beloved of children, has a whole suite of organisms entirely dependent on it, including two species of parasitic wasp, three species of parasitic fly, a nematode worm, a sexually-transmitted mite, a sexually-transmitted fungus and four special species of bacteria - "and these are only the ones we know about," said Professor Majerus.
All are likely to severely affected as the two-spot declines, a process which the professor thinks will change it from being our second most-common species, to a scarce insect, and the knock-on affect mounts up rapidly. "I reckon 1,000 species in Britain alone will be negatively affected by the presence of the harlequin," he said.
Yet it will not only be at the microscopic level that the effects will be felt. In some circumstances, especially when there are no aphids, the harlequin will eat anything it comes across that it can, and this can include the eggs and the larvae of butterflies and moths, as well as of lacewings and hoverflies.
"A study in America has shown that two species of blue butterfly have declined substantially because of harlequin ladybirds eating their eggs as standby food," Professor Majerus said. "Some British butterflies and moths could well be at risk, but we do not yet know which, because no research has yet been done."
Even birds such as wrens, which are major consumers of aphids, might be at risk, he said.
If you're relaxing and thinking, this is all very well but none of it's going to affect me, think again. One of the worst habits of harlequin ladybirds is that they swarm, in immense numbers, and then find a suitable house to spend the winter. It could be yours.
The phenomenon started to happen in Britain last autumn as the population began to explode for the first time. It was particularly noticeable on the Isle of Wight, where in late October and early November, thousands of the insects came together in clouds on the island's south coast, smothering vegetation and covering outside walls and window frames. Walkers reported thousands more clogging up footpaths on Compton Down.
Professor Majerus's knowledge of harlequin swarming does not offer much comfort to householders. "I expect we will soon be seeing cases of swarms of thousands or even tens of thousands, in British houses," he said.
"What can you do about it? Say rude words. You can vacuum them up, but when you do they will 'reflex bleed' - they discharge this yellow stuff from their knees, which gets all over your carpets and curtains. A strong insecticide will kill them, but do you want that in your home?
"There is a recommendation on one US website that you paint your house in dark colours, especially purple, because when they go to overwinter they seem to be attracted by pale surfaces. Really, all you can do is hope for the best."
Professor Majerus, who is Professor of Evolution at Cambridge and works in the department of genetics, believes some of Britain's ladybird species may be driven to extinction by the harlequin, especially the five-spot ladybird, which lives on river shingles in Wales and Scotland and is already rare.
The effect on the two-spot and the 10-spot ladybirds will be "very dramatic", with substantial declines, he thinks. The two-spot, in particular, is "an absolutely direct competitor with virtually no defence."
The commonest British ladybird, the 16-spot, which is less familiar because it is small, is less at risk because it feeds on honeydew rather than aphids.
Ladybirds are one of our most popular insects. The naturalist Peter Marren is assembling a compendium of ladybird lore for the forthcoming Bugs Britannica, and points out that the best place to find ladybirds is in gardens.
The best spotters are children, he said, as the insects are small and bright and close to the ground - and children find none of that a problem.
Furthermore, he said, the most recent species to be discovered in Britain before the harlequin, the bryony ladybird (so-called because it feeds on the shrub white bryony), was discovered by a five-year-old girl, Alysia Menzies, in the garden of her home in West Molesey, Surrey. (Her grandfather, a ladybird expert, actually made the identification.)
It was because ladybirds are so widely seen as benign that the release of the harlequin (which is banned in Europe) was allowed without a licence for so long, said Professor Majerus.
It is a native of Asia, east of the Urals, with a range stretching as far as Japan, and it has caused such trouble in the countries of the West where it has been introduced because it has left its natural enemies behind.
This is known as the "enemy-escape hypothesis". In its natural habitat there will be other organisms that will keep its population in check.
Professor Majerus said that at the moment there is no known organism which could control the harlequin, but he is testing a mite which can cause infertility in Britain's two-spot ladybird.
If that could be used on the harlequin, it might be able to suppress the population, he said, "but I can see no way that we could get rid of the harlequin completely".
He added: "It's certainly one of the most damaging invasive species Britain has ever had, right up there with the coypu, the grey squirrel and the mink."
http://environment.independent.co.uk/nature/article2765580.ece
butterfly child
Well-Known Member
I think I've seen one, all summer.. and that was on my FiL's partners net curtains on Saturday.
It climbed on my finger, and then flew out the window.
It climbed on my finger, and then flew out the window.
frogwoman
Let them eat newts
OK I spoke to the ladybird survey bloke today. He said that if you want to kill them it's fine, but there are so many of them around its not gonna make a difference.
Hes sending me some information in the post about surveying certain areas for the number of different ladybirds every month or something ...
Hes sending me some information in the post about surveying certain areas for the number of different ladybirds every month or something ...
Louloubelle
Well-Known Member
frogwoman said:
seems like a defeatist attitude to me
we can't just do nothing as our ladybirds go extinct
also harlequins eat so many aphids and lacewings that the birds who might eat them usually will starve. because the harlequins reflex bleed, which puts birds off eating them, the birds can't eat the harlequins. Harlequins also eat butterfly eggs so they threaten our butterflies too
we have to kill them for the sake of our native wildlife
frogwoman said:Hes sending me some information in the post about surveying certain areas for the number of different ladybirds every month or something ...
Great to see that you're getting involved. Good for you
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