The Tiny Bug Causing Colossal Damage
Media created by Louise Giddings ’23
The beautiful views of trees outside of the high school campus are in serious danger. The threat comes from a small bug called the lanternfly. You might have seen this pretty red bug in the neighborhood around Grace, either flying around or laying squashed on the sidewalk. It may look unassuming, but the lanternfly is a killer, and its victims are trees.
The lanternfly, also called the spotted lanternfly, has left a trail of dead trees throughout the United States. According to Cynthia Jackson, who teaches biology and gardening, lanternflies originated in Southeast Asia, and were “first identified as an invasive species in 2004 in South Korea and [are] now a major pest there.”
Ms. Jackson explains that they have since dispersed throughout the world by “attaching [themselves] to stone or other hard surfaces that are transported long distances,” often hitching a ride on “cargo cars transported via ships.”
In America, Lanternflies were first found in Pennsylvania in 2014. A Newsweek article describes their presence in 14 states in the Midwest and along the East Coast. These states include New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Virginia, West Virginia, Ohio, Maryland, Delaware, Michigan, North Carolina, and Indiana.
Lanternflies have spread with little resistance from people and other animals. Ms. Jackson notes that one of the reasons that lanternflies are difficult to stop is that “they have ways of managing their egg masses over the winter and hatching in the spring.” She explained that people would need to put in a lot of effort to stop lanternflies by “check[ing] the surfaces of our cars, any outdoor equipment, mowers, and firewood.”
Another way that the lanternflies could be eliminated is from predators, and Ms. Jackson noted that “the Audubon Society has identified over 33 species of birds, insect-eating insects, and spiders that are finding the lanternfly a delicious new food source.” However, this could be a long process, as there would be thousands of lanternflies to get rid of.
Ms. Jackson also said that “introducing pesticides to an area to eliminate an invasive species can backfire on many levels. These pesticides won’t exclusively eliminate lanternflies though — many other insects would be affected as well. All insects and living creatures serve a purpose within a biome’s delicate ecosystem so to spread a new chemical in a pesticide would disrupt the life cycle of many other species.”
While the damage they cause is easy to see, the lanternfly itself is hard to spot. They are only about an inch long, and unless they are in flight, they tend to blend in with tree bark. Their wings are a light gray with black spots. A beautiful red patch is revealed only when their wings are spread.
Despite their beauty in flight, officials in some states told Newsweek that people should kill lanternflies if they see them to save trees and crops. More than 70 types of plants and trees are threatened by lanternflies. The lanternfly sucks the sap of a plant, which is necessary to its survival. If they continue to spread unchecked, lanternflies could threaten certain food supplies for humans and other organisms.
The easiest way to kill a lanternfly is to step on one. Another way to kill them, as shown in the CNN report, is to use sticky tape on plants and trees in order to trap them. It is not enough, however, to kill lanternflies. It is also extremely important to dispose of lanternfly eggs. To do so one needs to scrape them off the surface they’re on. After scraping off the eggs, one must put them into a sealed bag with hand sanitizer and throw away the bag.
Lanternflies have spread so far and so fast that members of the government, including officials here in New York, have started taking action to stop them. According to a CNN report, Senator Chuck Schumer asked for more than $200 million from the USDA to help fight the spread of the lanternfly. The NY Department of Agriculture has also tried to thwart the spreading of lanternflies and is encouraging everyone who sees a lanternfly or its eggs, to destroy them and report it. As per the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation website, to report lanternfly sightings you can email spottedlanternfly@agriculture.ny.gov or submit a form to the Department of Agriculture and Markets. An app called Squishr, available in the App Store and Google Play Store, was also created to track the killings of this insidious insect.
Members of the Grace community have already been affected by the lanternfly. Selina P. ‘23 “remember[s] even laying on the beach this summer at the Jersey Shore and seeing one of those airplane banners fly by, reminding all the beachgoers of [lanterflies’] potential to harm the local ecosystem and importance of stepping on them.” Selina also wrote that she has “noticed that they are usually most active and most plentiful during the summer months.”
Jameira F. ‘23 discussed possible solutions to preventing the spread of lanternflies. Jameira said that “[a]n organic way to stop the spread of lanternflies is to use vinegar by either spraying it on plants or directly on lanternflies.”
As spraying vinegar directly on plants might be harmful to them, Jameira advises “to check which plants you’re spraying it on, or to just stick to spraying it directly on the lanternflies.”
Lanternflies could pose a serious threat to the Grace community and the world as a whole. Whether we stomp through Cooper Square or start spraying that vindictive vinegar to attack lanternflies, we can all do our part to stop the spread of this harmful species.
Nate Barkow ‘25, the author, is a staff writer for The Gazette.