Spotted Lanternfly

[brownrexx]

This is an invasive pest from Asia that arrived in PA in 2014 and it's spreading. They have not bothered my vegetable garden but they are causing untold damage to PA's agriculture as they love grape vines, black walnut and maple trees.

Here is what I saw on my deck today. These things are horrible. They do not bite or sting but they land on people and everything else in sight. I kill about 50 per day with a fly swatter on my deck.

Spotted Lanternflies, Sept 8 2020 by Brownrexx, on Flickr

September 8, 2020 by Brownrexx, on Flickr

[GoDawgs]

Geez! Do you have a small shop vac or something similar with disposable bags for hoovering these things up? They're larger than I thought!.

[brownrexx]

[mention]GoDawgs[/mention] they are actually easy to kill with an ordinary flyswatter. They just sit there and let me swat them. They will jump pretty high if I miss or I swat one beside them but they are actually easy to kill BUT they just keep coming. I go out onto the deck and kill a bunch and then I turn around and more have taken their place.

I know that it seems useless to kill them but I feel like every one I kill will not have the chance to reproduce. Males and females look alike now but later the females will swell with eggs that they will be laying on trees and other places.

Many people wrap wide sticky bands around their tree trunks but they catch birds and I will not do that.

[JRinPA]

When did you first see them [mention]brownrexx[/mention]?

They snuck in right around here where I live, but there are not nearly as many as there were in 2016-17. Been a while since I've seen a mob like that around here. Our swamp maple was covered up like that a couple years in a row but not the last two. But I see loners all of over the place. And seeing mobs 30-40 miles from home. The way they hitch rides on trucks, and us being the Keystone State, I'd be surprised if there aren't little pockets everywhere by now.

If you have the time to kill them, go for it. While the adults are fairly easy to kill, the nymphs are little ninjas and much more difficult. I have bashed my hands enough times that I am conservative with my efforts.

I was in tree deer hunting yesterday and I can't say I saw a single one of them all day.

[brownrexx]

[mention]JRinPA[/mention] the first week of September was when the big wave arrived and it continued for about 2 weeks and has dwindled off now but I think that they are getting ready to lay eggs. The female's abdomen swells and turns yellow when they are ready to lay eggs and I have seen a few of those. Arghhh, these are horrible things.

[JRinPA]

Yes, they certainly are. Was this the first year you've seen them, though? A few of us from PA have posted about them over the last few years but I can't remember if you had. That's what I wondering. They made it down to coateville in force this year, and destroyed a tree of a neighbor of a friend of mine. Turns out is was a tree of heaven! I thought everyone was supposed to cut them down before the SLF used them to multiply...

[brownrexx]

[mention]JRinPA[/mention] I probably didn't post here about it but I have been seeing them for the last 3 years. I hear that they are in MD and NJ now too.

[brownrexx]

[mention]JRinPA[/mention] They're baaack. I am probably killing 50-60 of them with a fly swatter EVERY DAY on my back deck and I am noticing the swollen yellow abdomen of females ready to begin egg laying. I know that it's a drop in a bucket of the total population but every one that I kill is a couple hundred eggs that will not get deposited.

[pepperhead212]

I just killed one on my mailbox a couple of days ago, but haven't seen another one, and I have been looking!

[brownrexx]

Lucky you [mention]pepperhead212[/mention] They are big so I can see them flying through the air and sometimes they land on me. They don't spend a lot of time flying but are usually on their way to land when I see one. Their nature is to climb so if one lands on my back and I don't know it, then it crawls up and I feel it on my neck which causes me to swat at my neck and jump around. I just hate these things!

[GoDawgs]

Do any of you know how far south these things have gotten yet?

[JRinPA]

I have no idea. About 3-4 years back I saw thousands at the intersection at rt100/county line road in Boyertown. The wind was just right and swarms were crossing east to west and landing on tractor trailers stopped at the light. The next year I went buy wood at home depot in pottstown and there were thousands of nymphs on the outside wood stacks. Those stacks being sold to customers and spread further. I lost hope of stemming the tide after witnessing those messes.

[brownrexx]

[mention]GoDawgs[/mention] don't worry, it's not near Georgia just yet. This site shows a map.

https://nysipm.cornell.edu/environment/ ... -range-us/

[brownrexx]

Saw this tree near where I live today and snapped a pic for those of you who may not know what a scourge these things are! Look on the ground at the ones waiting to climb onto the tree. Gross!

Spotted Lantern Flies 2020 by Brownrexx, on Flickr

[JRinPA]

They just run over each other like soldiers laying over barbed wire...it has been quite an invasion. I haven't seen them like that around here for a few years. Is that a maple tree? It looks sort of girdled at the bottom, I don't really recognize the bark but some of the fungus looks like our swamp maple.

Were they mostly on the shady side, or spread around?

edit: that map shows a known specimen found in western NC...

[brownrexx]

[mention]JRinPA[/mention] they were all around the tree and the tan area looks like a home made sticky trap. It kind of looked like a manila folder but I could hear and see them jumping off of it so it must not have been sticky enough.

Yes, it is a maple tree. This seems to be their favorite since most people have gotten rid of those Tree of Heaven trees.

[JRinPA]

I just checked at lunch and I killed 1 in range, I saw 2 up pretty high right next to each other, and 1 other up high on another branch. Maybe more beyond that, but that was it for 15 feet. They are terrible but it does seem that there was a huge wave around 15, 16, 17, but now it has abated greatly. Our maple tree looked something like that maple does, in 16 and 17. They were all over my okra back then, and the roses...I think I saw two red nymphs on the okra all year. Instead of 200.

I seem to think we were seeing the swarms on the shady east side, in the afternoons. That's why I asked.

[brownrexx]

I just heard today that they are toxic to dogs if they eat even just one. It causes seizures. Stepping on them can also burn their footpads and cause them to crack open.

These things are horrible in so many ways.

[JRinPA]

You sure those aren't coleman lantern flies?

I admit I have never hear that!