Beetle

I spotted a couple of these little beauties sporting their lustrous metallic sheen on a lavender plant today. Very striking they are - and, unfortunately, pretty deadly to lavender, rosemary, sage and various other plants. The Rosemary Beetle (or Lavender Beetle) was first seen in the UK in 1994, but it really took off around 2003. A fast breeder with no predators to stand in its way, it's now spread across the whole of Southern England and is advancing northward, its larvae chomping their ways through all those tasty plants. And if the beetles are out and about already, just after a bitter cold snap, they are clearly a force to be reckoned with.