In the field of classical biological control-the use of exotic natural enemies to counter invasive pests-examples of biocontrol insects that have themselves gone out of control are relatively few. Possibly due to this onslaught, even New York’s official state insect, the nine-spotted lady beetle (Coccinella novemnotata), is now extinct in the state. To make matters worse, the newcomers are apt to eat the hometown ladybugs, too. Along with another foreign import, the seven-spotted ladybug (Coccinella septempunctata) brought over earlier from Europe, the ravenous Asian insect has eaten so many aphids so fast that many native ladybugs may have been left with too little to eat. Swarms of the little beetles eventually marched up the Atlantic seaboard into New England and westward across the Mississippi. Unfortunately, it also revealed two unwelcome traits: the wanderlust of a hobo and the appetite of a gourmand. The multicolored Asian lady beetle (Harmonia axyridis) did a superb job. WHEN A PLAGUE of tree-climbing aphids afflicted pecan orchards in the southeastern United States in the 1970s, federal biologists released a tree-climbing ladybug from Asia to devour them. Introduced into this country to control pests, these insects now wreak havoc of their own
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