This Australian species may have been accidentally introduced on plants and was first recorded in Europe from Devon in 1908. It was restricted to the southernmost counties of England until the 1970s when it began to spread slowly north. There was a huge range expansion during the 1990s and it reached Yorkshire in 2012 and Durham in 2014. Since the first record from Souter Lighthouse on 14th June 2014 there have been 151 records of 271 individuals and it can now be found in most lowland areas of the county but often centred on urban areas such as Stockton, Darlington and Gateshead.