Killer ladybird

A "voracious predator" which is threatening native ladybird species is spreading across the UK just two years after its first sighting in Essex.

The harlequin ladybird, Harmonia axyridis, is clustered around the south-east of England, but it was also spotted in Wales in August.

It is aggressive, eats more, and can even turn on other ladybirds for food.

Experts have warned some of the UK's rarer ladybird species "will probably disappear in the next 10 years".

The harlequin, originally from Asia, was used as a bio-control agent to eat insects and stop them destroying crops.

But ladybird expert Dr Mike Majerus said: "In North America and north-western continental Europe, it's simply out-competing the native ladybirds. It eats all their food and if it runs out of the food it then starts to actually eat other species of ladybird - the larvae, the eggs, the pupae."