Wiki version of cochineal in Australia funny and typical:
The host cactus Opuntia (also known as "Prickly pear") was first taken to Australia in an attempt to start a cochineal dye industry in 1787, when Captain Arthur Phillip collected a number of cochineal-infested plants from Brazil on his way to establish the first European settlement at Botany Bay (part of which is now Sydney, New South Wales). At that time, Spain and Portugal had a worldwide monopoly (via their New World colonial sources) on the cochineal dye industry, and the British desired a source under their own control, as the dye was important to their clothing and garment industries (it was used to colour the British soldiers' red coats, for example). The attempt was a failure in two ways: the Brazilian cochineal insects soon died off, but the cactus thrived, eventually overrunning about 100,000 square miles of eastern Australia. The cacti were eventually brought under control in the 1920s by the deliberate introduction of a South American moth, Cactoblastis cactorum, whose larvae fed on the cactus.
