12 June 2023

They’re here, they’re creepy and they’re not going away any time soon. Spotted lanternflies (Lycorma delicatula) have made it to Pittsburgh and are following the typical trajectory of invasive insect pests: Barely noticeable (2018) to Overwhelming (2022, 2023+) to Hard to Find (declines in about 3 years: 2025).

The most important thing to remember is this from Penn State Extension: Avoid overreacting to the situation and teach others not to overreact. Insecticides won’t eradicate the pests but will kill the good bugs, bees and butterflies. Instead, let’s outsmart spotted lanternflies.

First, know the enemy and its weakness: Spotted lanternflies can only crawl up, they can’t reverse!

You can also learn online from Penn State Extension’s Spotted Lanternfly Management Guide.

Third, protect a favorite tree using this circle trap (video below). You can make your own circle trap or buy one here. Do not use sticky tape as it traps and kills birds (trying to eat the bugs) and beneficial insects.

Fourth, be brave. Yesterday Claire Staples outsmarted hundreds of spotted lanternfly nymphs by smashing them with her bare hands! Here are her photos and a quote from her email. (How many nymphs can you see in the right hand photo?)

I killed over 200 in a 10 foot section along the power lines through Swisshelm Park slag heap.  It was the only place where we found them but it was amazing to see the density.  It was really easy to get them and my granddaughter watched and only a few escaped.  I would take the small branch with the bugs in the palm of my hand and place the other palm on [top of] it and start rolling my hands together.  I was amazed that my hands appeared clean and there was no odor.  I did wash my hands later but I was surprised that there was no residue.

— email from Claire Staples, 11 June 2023

That’s braver than I would have been!

(photos from Wikimedia Commons and Claire Staples; video embedded from Penn State Extension)

5 June 2023

If you noticed spotted lanternflies (Lycorma delicatula) in Pittsburgh last summer you remember seeing this one-inch long insect.

But they don’t start out this big.

Right now they are tiny black nymphs with white spots. I saw one perched on the edge of a metal chair yesterday at the Phipps BioBlitz and moved closer to confirm its identity. As I approached it jumped so far I couldn’t find it.

I tracked it down and smashed it with my shoe … and immediately wished I’d taken its picture. I found another one (there are lots of them) and learned how to get close enough for a cellphone photograph without making it jump. Not a sharp photo but you get the idea.

The first instar(*) nymphs are tiny — just 1/4 inch long — and well camouflaged, even on a silver chair.

Walking and hopping, they look for something to suck on, primarily Tree-of-heaven (Ailanthus altissima) but they are generalists so they’ll eat anything that appeals to them. Fortunately they are only deadly to Ailanthus and grapevines.

As they feed on plants the insects grow and change through various stages of development. The first, second and third instars continue to be black nymphs with white spots, just progressively larger [B]. The fourth instar is a red nymph with white spots at 3/4 inch long [C].

Right now they’re so small they are easy to overlook. When the one-inch-long flying adults emerge in July-to-September this invasive insect will be hard to ignore.

Read more about them at Cornell University’s Spotted Lanternfly Biology and Lifecycle.

(*) Definition of instar. noun, ZOOLOGY. A phase between two periods of molting in the development of an insect larva or other invertebrate animal. — from Oxford Languages via Google

(photos by Kate St. John, life phases photos from Penn State Extension)

31 July 2022

When the highly invasive spotted lanternfly (Lycorma delicatula) was first discovered in western Pennsylvania in January 2020 it was a non event for most of us. We knew the bug was plaguing eastern Pennsylvania and that Allegheny County became a lanternfly quarantine zone, but for two years most of us never saw one. That changed this summer when many Pittsburghers found them in their own backyards.

Frank Izaguirre’s experience in Oakland is typical. The first one appeared on 17 July but within ten days the number of bugs had grown so fast that finding and killing them, as recommended by the PA Dept of Agriculture(*), became a daunting daily chore.

Annie Quinn noticed them in a park and enlisting her kids to squash them on the ground. Then she looked up and saw hundreds and hundreds coating the upper branches of the trees. “Kids, this problem is much bigger than we are.”

Indeed! I saw hundreds (thousands?) on the North Shore near the Carnegie Science Center on Tuesday 26 July.

And it’s going to get worse before it gets better.

Julie Urban, an associate professor of entomology at Penn State, said residents of the area will see a lot more lanternflies in September.

“They’re starting to emerge as adults about now and then when they start to mate more heavily you’re going to see a lot more in the first couple weeks of September,” said Urban. “That’s just when they’re more active. So, be ready for that.”

— Trib-Live: Spotted Lanternfly numbers way up in Allegheny County

Since each female lanternfly lays an egg mass containing 30-50 eggs, the population grows exponentially every year: 1 > 50 > 2,500 > 125,000 > 6.2 million!

It took just 2.5 years to go from “What’s the problem?” to “Oh my gosh!”

There is no way we can squash them individually. However there are easy ways to passively kill them in our yards. Three years ago a girl in New Jersey came up with a very inexpensive and effective trap.

video from 69News WFMZ-TV on YouTube

Other inexpensive do-it-yourself traps are described at these YouTube links: A simple tulle trap, the simplified hoop trap and an elaborate v2 Trap that requires tools. In any case if you make a trap, use netting not glue. Glue tape indiscriminately kills bees, bats and small birds that try to feast on the trapped bugs.

This is our first Summer of the Spotted Lanternfly in Pittsburgh, but it’s not the last.

Read more about the current outbreak at Trib-Live: Spotted Lanternfly numbers way up in Allegheny County.

(*) The PA Dept of Agriculture is encouraging anyone who sees a spotted lanternfly to kill it and report it online here or by calling 1-888-422-3359.

(photos by Frank Izaguirre, Kate St. John and from Wikimedia Commons, video from 69News WFMZ-TV on YouTube)

p.s. On 5 August 2022 one landed on my bedroom window on the 6th floor of a highrise. Uh oh!

15 June 2022

When the invasive spotted lanternfly (Lycorma delicatula) was first discovered near Allentown, Pennsylvania in 2014, biologists and farmers worried that it would destroy agriculture and kill native trees. Now that the insect has been in North America for seven years and shown what it can do, scientists have their revised their advice about this bug.

Back in 2014 we had no experience with spotted lanternfly so we looked to another place where it is invasive — South Korea — and applied their experience to our landscape. The forecast was bad, the prognosis dire.

Fortunately the bug didn’t do what we thought it would. The only tree it kills is its host tree, tree-of-heaven (Ailanthus altissima), one of the worst invasive plants in North America.

Spotted lanternflies can stress native trees, especially young ones, but they don’t kill them.

As for agriculture spotted lanternfly nymphs kill grapevines, below, but not other fruits and vegetables. This spares most of Pennsylvania’s farmers.

The Allegheny Front reported in February that the widest economic impact is felt by businesses that must inspect everything before they transport goods — and potential lanternflies — from quarantined to non-infected locations.

The Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture is still tracking the bug’s advance so report it in counties where it’s new. Here’s the spotted lanternfly quarantine as of March 2022.

Like other invaders, spotted lanternflies surge in an area, then ebb when they exhaust their food supply. During a surge they are worse than annoying.

Overall, the spotted lanternfly is not as bad as we feared.

Learn more at The Allegheny Front: Penn State researchers aim to debunk myths surrounding spotted lanternfly.

(photos from bugwood and Wikimedia Commons; click on the captions to see the originals)

11 October 2021

The invasive spotted lanternfly (Lycorma delicatula) hasn’t taken over Pittsburgh yet but it’s only a matter of time. Since first seen in western Pennsylvania in January 2020 at the Norfolk Southern railyard in Conway, Beaver County, the bugs have expanded their population and range. They’ve been seen on the North Side, in Homestead, and elsewhere near the railroads that brought them here.

Fall is breeding time for spotted lanternflies which are now in their winged adult phase. The adults won’t survive the winter but their egg masses will, so the more adults we eliminate now before they lay eggs the better.

Smashing a spotted lanternfly is easier said than done. The bugs have instant reflexes and jump when approached. However you can catch them in a water bottle. Easily! That’s why this video went viral.

Save a couple of plastic water bottles and lids. You’ll need lids to keep the bugs in the bottle.

Catch the bugs early in the day before they go too far up the trees.

Freeze the bottles containing lanternflies. The bugs die when they’re cold. Ta dah.

Good luck!

p.s. UPDATE, 5 November 2021: I saw my first spotted lanternfly in Schenley Park. It was in the SLF trap near the Bartlett tufa bridge.

(photos from Wikimedia Commons, Bugwood and Kate St. John; videos embeded from YouTube)

6 May 2021

Now that the trees have leafed out and bug season is firing up in Pennsylvania, it’s time to watch for and report the spotted lanternfly.

Spotted lanternflies (Lycorma delicatula) are invasive planthoppers native to China and Vietnam whose favorite food is the invasive Ailanthus, the Tree-of-Heaven. If they ate only Ailanthus it would be OK but their sharp mouth parts pierce the stems and suck the sap of grapevines, hops, apple trees, peaches and hardwoods including oaks and cherries. They’re bad news for agriculture and forests.

Lanternflies are making quick progress across Pennsylvania because they’re aided by human transportation. First discovered in North America in Berks County, PA in 2018 the bug spread through eastern PA for two years. In early 2020 it was found on rail cars at the Norfolk Southern railyard in Conway, Beaver County. Soon after in Allegheny County. Early this year it completed an unbroken path through the lower third of the state by adding Westmoreland and Cambria Counties. What’s on this path? The Norfolk-Southern Railroad.

The lanternfly travels easily from September to May as flat gray egg masses on rail cars, trucks and automobiles.

The eggs hatch from spring through summer so now’s the time to watch for black or red spotted nymphs, especially in the unmarked counties above.

If you see spotted lanternflies in any life stage report them at this easy-to-use Penn State Extension website: Have You Seen a Spotted Lanternfly?

We won’t see adult lanternflies until July to November. And frankly, we really don’t want to.

(photos and map from PA Dept of Agriculture, Penn State Extension and Bugwood; click on the captions to see the originals)

22 January 2020

It was only a matter of time before the highly invasive spotted lanternfly (Lycorma delicatula) made its way to western Pennsylvania but it’s disturbing to learn that it’s so close to Pittsburgh.

On 20 January 2020 the Columbus Dispatch reported that spotted lanternfly egg masses were found at the Norfolk Southern railyard in Conway, PA. They probably arrived by train and are now less than 20 miles from Downtown Pittsburgh and even closer to Ohio.

At this time of year the adult bugs are not active so an egg mass, pictured below, is the only thing they found. The authorities scraped away the egg masses and killed the eggs.

This is bad news anyway. USDA says that spotted lanternflies are the worst invasive species we’ve seen in the United States for 150 years.

Learn how to identify them and see why they’re so awful in the video below.

Oh no!

(photos from bugwood.org; click the captions to see the originals)