Dogged Nature

Friends around London have reported a sudden infestation of ladybirds in their rooms. Springtime is here, and so are the Harlequins. This one was crawling all over my notes, before I took it out and dumped it on a grass patch outside.

“Since the arrival of the harlequin ladybird it has never been more important to monitor ladybirds.”

Source: Natural History Museum news (archived from 2005, but still as relevant as ever)

“Britain’s best-loved beetle, the ladybird, is under threat from the world’s most invasive ladybird species - the harlequin ladybird (Harmonia axyridis).

An extremely voracious predator, the harlequin ladybird easily out-competes native ladybirds for its preferred food of green fly and scale insects. When these food sources are scarce they readily prey on native ladybirds and other insects such as butterfly eggs, caterpillars and lacewing larvae.

The harlequin ladybird was introduced to North America from Asia to control plant pests and, 20 years later, has become North America’s commonest ladybird. First spotted in the UK in September 2004, sightings have mainly been confined to the south east of Britain.”

Its distribution map shows London and its surrounds as hotspots. The The Harlequin Ladybird survey homepage has some pretty useful ID info and details on how to submit sighting records. So Londoners - start taking note of how many spots your ladies have!

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“The number of bird species in London declines from 77 in the outer suburbs to 50 in the inner and 43 in the city centre.” (Pullin, 2002)

Species richness in urban areas declines towards the city centre, but I never knew what the figures were.

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