To begin with, I do not know what sort of shrub it is, so please can anyone identify this?

The bush is dense, medium to slow growing, ever green, forms black berries and I have never seen it flower. Pictures linked below.

Secondly almost all of the leaves have been attacked, looking like they have been eaten. I have inspected the leaves many times and rarely find any bugs on them. The area does have a good number of black ants, but I rarely see them on the plant and there are also a relatively large number of spiders (though no more than previous years when there was no problem).

Any help to identify the bush and the problem would be much appreciated, if only to give me pointers of where else to research.

Comparison of healthy leaf with problem leaf:

Bottom side:

Showing berries:

Attacked region:

General bush overview:

It sort of looks like Cherry laurel 'Otto Luyken'. Have you scouted out slugs? Set a saucer of beer underneath a plant and see if you get any activity. Maybe grasshoppers?

Could also be laurel 'Shot hole' disease caused by a fungus, if your weather tends to be damp with low light. Look that up and see if it matches your conditions.

there would most likely not be a problem.. if there were a mixture of plants.. so that one predator.. would not attack the whole line ...

if you dont see anything.. then perhaps you are looking at the wrong time of day .... i like the slug suggestion.. since they come out at night ... so get out there after dark with a flashlight.. and see if you spot anything ....

ken

Slugs seldom bother any broadleafed evergreens - the leaf tissue is too tough. This type of damage is very common to lots of broadleafed EG's in my area and can be attributed to root weevils. The larvae of root weevils can attach susceptible plant roots but it is the damage of the adult weevils that creates the notching of the foliage. Adult weevils are night feeders so that's why you don't see them.

Shot hole disease - exteremly common to 'Otto Luyken' - could also be playing a role but the damage pattern from that is usually a bit different - instead of the edge notching mostly seen in the above photos, distinct holes will develop in the interior of the foliage but if the problem is very pronounced, these lesions can coalesce and could look like the above.

I'd approach treatment on both fronts :-)

how they looked then