---

Sometimes you just stumble on something nice and conspicuous. This time, last Sunday, it was in my own front garden.
We have two rosemary bushes there. Rosemary is not indigenous to the Netherlands, so anything specializing on such a plant is potentially interesting. If you then find some beautiful chrysomelids on the plant, you collect a few and try to find out what they are. You end up with Chrysolina americana, the rosemary beetle. Five known localities in the Netherlands (http://home.zonne...m#CHLIAMER), with only one comfirmed breeding population (Tilburg). Conspicuously enough, my own city, Hoorn, had one recorded specimen, collected indoors. It is marked as 'doubtful, antropogeneous'. My records show that it might not have been en incident that it was recorded there earlier.

Here are two pictures I took today.

---

Second one.

---

Very pretty. Highly destructive. They've been in Norfolk for about four years, and are common in Norwich, both on Rosmarius and Lavendula. Although called Chrysolina americana, I understand it is native to the Mediterranean area. Like the Asian Harlequin Ladybird, I think it's here to stay.