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So those baby ladybirds have grown and are mostly black with a few large orange spots, which isn't like a normal ladybird.

Does that mean they're the invasive ones and we should try and get rid of them?

@alexisbushnell No that's a good thing, that's a ladybird partway through its lifecycle.

@vulgalour oh cool, there's loads of them, that's really reassuring, thank you.

@alexisbushnell It's hard to tell without a clearer picture, but that looks more like an Asian Lady Beetle (more oval and orange) than a more typical ladybug. You'd want to look for a M/W pattern at the back of the head to confirm. Asian Lady Beetles also bite and leave a foul smell. Additionally, while they do eat aphids too, they also tend to eat some of the plants we don't want them to eat.

In most cases:
Ladybugs == good
Asian Lady Beetle != good (but it depends)

@alexisbushnell yes and no. Harlequins are here to stay, no point trying to stop the tide. At least there are so many aphids this year the probably don't need to eat anything else.

@Beedazzled that's so depressing. I hate seeing native species displaced.
I was talking to @Uselessgeneration yesterday about how I used to see red squirrels quite a lot as a kid and now never.

@alexisbushnell @Uselessgeneration what gets me is it's us doing it 99 times out of a 100. Sometime things settle in, collar doves for instance, and find their place so there is always hope. An ecologist I used to work with would go on for hours about sycamore and how he'd like to fell the lot, pull them out like rotting teeth, whereas I think they are an important part of the Welsh ecosystem now