Deathwatch Beetle Threat To Celebrated British Warship

Resoration work has left the central part of HMS victory encased in scaffolding (Credit: AFP)

HMS Victory has survived the cannonballs of Napoleon's navy, being rammed by another warship, a World War II bomb, even UK navy plans to scrap her.

But nearly 260 years after it was launched, Victory -- emblem of British maritime heritage and scene of naval hero Horatio Nelson's death during the Battle of Trafalgar -- is facing another equally deadly threat: the deathwatch beetle.