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Why scarlet lily beetle has Wisconsin gardeners seeing red

Lily leaf beetle, also called scarlet lily beetle, is an invasive species that is native to parts of Europe and Asia. It first showed up in Wisconsin in 2014 in the Wausau area. It likely came in with infected nursery stock to a garden center or big box store in that part of the state and was then purchased by customers who moved the plants elsewhere, said entomologist PJ Liesch, director of the University of Wisconsin-Madison Insect Diagnostic Lab.