Scientists have confirmed that a brown marmorated stink bug with the potential to threaten fruit and vegetable crops has arrived in the UK.
The bug, which gets its name from the smell it releases when it feels threatened, was first discovered in the gardens of the Natural History Museum last year.
But it has since turned up at a house in Surrey.
Its spread has been tracked by the scientists at the museum and the horticultural research institute NIAB EMR in a British Journal of Entomology and Natural History paper.
In 2014, Max Barclay, the senior curator in charge of beetles at the Museum, predicted that the bug would reach the UK.
He previously said: “They’ll establish pretty quickly, we’ve seen this in a lot of invasive species before. You find one or two and then they are everywhere.
“The harlequin ladybird from China arrived in 2006, and now they are enormously abundant.”
Native to China, Japan and Korea, it is a fast breeding insect that comes in various shades of brown and can grow up to 1.7 centimetres long.
But if disturbed or squashed, it can exude a long lasting smell that has been known to cause allergic reactions.
Mr Barclay, added: “If you have a bunch of grapes that contain stinkbugs and you grind them up into wine, you get the smell of stink bugs in the drink and people don’t like that.
“You have the same problem with some ladybirds which get into wine and spoil the taste of it.”
Members of the public are now invited to submit photographs of potential sightings to the Natural History Museum’s biodiversity Facebook group where scientists will confirm identifications and monitor the stink bugs spread.
