About a month or so ago I noticed some sort of 'Ladybug lookin thing' all over my Alyssum in my flowerbeds. Doing a little online detective work, I am pretty certain I have ID'd it as a Bagrada bug. Pretty prolific little SOB's too.

From what I've read, it sounds like this is an import and there have been a lot of reports of it in California. I'm in North Texas and know a lot of members are as well. Has anyone run into this pest? It did a nice job of defoliating a large number of plants and I do Alyssum every year so I am looking for a control for next Spring.

My garden: Soil: Filled the beds with Living Earth's mix when I built the beds two years ago, farmland before that mostly (Hunter's Creek, Frisco). I use a variety of organic ferts and don't treat for insects beyond the occasional BT spray in my veggie garden. I have a decent number of mantids around, tons of spiders, very active soil with tons of earthworms... Fair amount of compost (make my own)...

Thoughts/suggestions welcome. I'm 90% sure this is the critter:

I would try doing what the farmer from Africa did, by hand picking them into a jar, then crushing them, then sprinkling the crushed remains back onto the plants. And I also bet that orange oil would eat these guys' lunch. Are these beetles here in Texas? Keep us informed incase I am attacked after I plant my garden...

Hmmmm.... well, I saw a few hundred fullgrown ones when I pulled the spent alyssum so handpicking, while good, isn't likely to fix this. I'm hoping they can't overwinter here and assuming they came in with some plants from California where there have been a lot of reports of infestation.

I'm a major xenophobe when it comes to pests - the absence of a natural predator is typically a bad bad thing so foreign pests scare me.

Anyone else caught sight of one of these?

I don't use sprays much on the theory that even the non-toxic ones are also non selective. I use a little BT when the hornworms come but that's and a hard blast from the hose is all I do. After a couple years I've found that for the most part, I have a huge number of spiders, ladybugs, mantids and lacewings so the inevitable aphid and other similarly unpleasant invasions are quelled.

Found a very large mantis joyfully beheading a tomato hornworm that was pillaging my tomato countryside this summer and the evil glee I felt actually made me wonder if I'm 'alright'

Wonder if the ladybugs and mantids will figure out that the eggy and nymphs are a nice snack if they make it to Spring?

Apparently if you pick "some" of them, then crush them and spread the crushed beatles around your plants it repells them. Maybe by crushing thier bodies it releases a chemical and signals danger... I don't know, it could be bull, but this is what the people from the beatle's natural habitat actually do. Good luck

Oh OK, I missed the 'see what happened to yer little buddies' part.

They are a form of stink bug so that makes sense, will go on a bagradacidal killing spree and see what happens.