Phillip Schofield and Holly Willoughby started 'This Morning' "mid-trauma" as escaped ants caused chaos in the studio.

Phillip Schofield and Holly Willoughby

Phillip Schofield and Holly Willoughby

The ITV daytime programme's team were lucky to have co-host Holly - who stepped in for Ant McPartlin to present Australian jungle show 'I'm A Celebrity... Get Me Out Of Here!' last year - on hand to "alert" them to the bugs who had managed to get out of their tank when the show went live on air on Thursday morning (25.04.19).

Phillip's piece-to-camera started with him telling viewers: "Welcome to 'This Morning'. You join us mid-trauma today. There's been an escape in the studio. We've got a big bug item coming up later on in the studio."

Holly interrupted him to point out that she was the one who discovered the ants were on the loose.

She said: "Can I just say, who alerted everyone to the bug item? Me.

"I came in to have a look at the tanks, get myself familiar with the bugs that are here. We've got cockroaches and beetles.

"Then I looked in the ant tank. There were no ants in the ant tank. Where are they?"

There were seven ants in total and only three of them had been found, however, Holly shared an update that a fourth had been returned to its tank.

Phillip added: "Hopefully by the time we come to the item we will have enough ants."

'This Morning' had several creepy crawlies in the studio for a segment on the show and the team were seen desperately trying to hide away or retrieve the ants.

The show's resident doctor, Dr. Ranj Singh, may have squished some of the unwanted "guests".

Phillip said: "Ranj comes stomping in - it's like 'no there are guests on the floor'."

During chef John Torode's part of the show, Philip threw down a piece of asparagus - which they had previously used to determine the sex of The Duchess of Sussex's unborn baby - and quipped that he was trying to use the green vegetable to determine if the ants were back in their tank or not.

He joked: "I just want to know if were going to find all the ants. Yeah there's an A in there. I am the Asparamancer."

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