Suddenly, spotted lanternflies are all over the place. Had it ridden here on the train? It might have. As this bug maneuvered itself onto the cap, for a moment the wings flared and the red showed vividly. When the insect is at rest, the dull brown forewings cover the hind wings, and you can’t see much of the red. Spotted lanternflies have a set of hind wings, half of which are bright red, the color of Certainly Red lipstick. It descended on the other side of the cap, stepped six-leggedly onto the top bar of the next fence section, and continued onward. The spotted lanternfly got to the pole and went up the inch or two at the top slowly, each pair of its legs at a time then it walked a careful semicircle as it traversed the cap. As I watched, a spotted lanternfly walked along the top of the fence.Įach section of fence is supported by a vertical pipelike pole with a hemispheric metal cap. I happened to be on the left side of the train, where the view was of the top bar of the chain-link fence, closeup. In the double-decker cars, the bottom tier of seats puts you at eye level with the train platform, and, when you look out the window at the stations, you see the passengers’ shoes. The station’s eastbound and westbound tracks are divided by a chain-link fence about five feet high, probably to keep people from crossing them. “They’re not great fliers, but they’re constantly moving.I was sitting in a New Jersey Transit train at Bay Street Station in Montclair, New Jersey, one afternoon when I saw a spotted lanternfly. “If you don’t kill it, you’ll carry it,” she says. Spotted lanternflies can’t fly very far on their own, but have managed to spread by hitching rides with humans and vehicles, which is why Urban says it’s important to be vigilant about your surroundings and kill the insects or any egg masses if you see them. “It’s not futile.” How to best get rid of spotted lanternflies “People get very frustrated with invasive species, but anything they can do helps researchers buy time as we come up with better solutions,” she says. So while the insect may not be eradicated through the stomping of many feet, Urban adds that these efforts still help researchers. We do hope to slow the spread to give us more time to learn about this.” “We don’t feel as though eradication is an option for this,” says Eshenaur. “Each one we step on has the potential of killing 40 with it.”Īt the end of the day, though, spotted lanternflies are here to stay, and all efforts are on slowing down the insects’ reach rather than getting rid of them completely. “One female spotted lanternfly can lay up to 40 egg masses,” he says. But with thousands of insects already in the environment, will squashing a few bugs have any impact?Įshenaur says that small efforts can play a big part in reducing the population-especially on a local scale. Experts worry about the economic toll of the spotted lanternfly but say more research is needed to better understand its impact.Įxperts say that having people kill lanternflies is a short term strategy as scientists continue to develop long-term, sustainable solutions. The spotted lanternfly has a preference for grapevines, maple trees, and black walnut, all of which are vital to the country’s grape, orchard, and logging industries. “It could potentially kill other plants, but it’s more of a stressor.” The insects damage plants and trees, causing them to leak sap from the wounds and leave behind a sticky honeydew that can lead to the growth of sooty mold, a fungal disease. “They insert their straw-like beaks into the plant and feed on the sap,” says Julie Urban, associate professor at Penn State’s entomology department. But it’s a danger to more than 100 trees and plants, and can kill grapevines and the tree of heaven, a fast-growing deciduous tree native to China that is also an invasive species. The spotted lanternfly doesn’t cause any harm to humans or animals-it doesn’t bite, sting, or contain venom. Why experts are encouraging people to kill spotted lanternflies
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