Lily beetle wears a frock of frass to deter foes
by Phil Gates from Environment | The Guardian on (#2T0VB)
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.
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