大象传媒

How much of our British wildlife is not actually British? Whether we realise it or not, a large proportion of our flora and fauna doesn't really belong here. These are On the face of it, harlequin ladybirds look much like any other British ladybird - in fact, many other ladybirds. Their name comes from the fact that they come in many different colours, which makes them very difficult to distinguish. One alarmingly easy way to identify this species is because it eats other ladybirds, and since they were first discovered in the country five years ago, they have continued to spread across the land. The arrival of the harlequin ladybird into the UK is threatening the existence of 1,000 British insects - it's the most invasive ladybird species on earth. The reason they were brought here in the first place was because ladybirds eat aphids and aphids eat plants and vegetables, so European farmers imported consignments of the voracious harlequin ladybird from Asia to protect their crops. In 2004 their import was banned, but too late: the harlequins had come across the channel and started to breed.