Lily beetle wears a frock of frass to deter foes

Crook, Country Durham Tiny larvae hatched then covered their bloated bodies in their own sticky excrement so they resembled bird droppings

At first I thought the flash of red under the leaf was a ladybird. Then I realised that this was a scarlet lily beetle, which has the delightfully alliterative scientific name of Lilioceris lilii.

These gaudy insects have a formidable appetite for lily foliage and have spread from their native Eurasia throughout most of the temperate northern hemisphere. They first appeared in a Surrey garden in 1939 and reached the US in 1943. They turned up in my garden in May.