![]() And “as their host plants get depleted, they literally move on to greener pastures”.Įfforts to eliminate host trees in Pennsylvania could be prompting the pest’s spread to other areas where it can find that food supply. “There’s evidence that in some areas where it was heavy originally and close to the site of the original introduction, it seems that population there is lower.”īut, she added, “they really move around a lot”. “There is really no consensus,” says Julie Urban, professor of entomology at Pennsylvania State University. ![]() Perhaps there is truly a decline, or perhaps the lower numbers simply mean that “folks are tired of letting us know about it”, said Jay Losiewicz, deputy communications director of the Pennsylvania department of agriculture. Spotted lanternfly egg mass seen in Pennsylvania. Scientists are split on the significance of these findings. Some 61,000 were found in 2021, the latest year for which state data is available. While lanternfly sightings and surveys in Pennsylvania tallied roughly 9,000 insects in 2017, soaring to 150,000 in 2019, there has been a drastic drop in recent years. The state is currently on a mission to eradicate the tree. “It’s where they get all their energy,” Hoover said. It has a higher concentration of sugars in its roots compared with trees like red maples, river birches and willows, making it attractive to the insect. The lanternfly’s food of choice is tree of heaven, a plant that is also invasive. ![]() “We think this is the result of exhausting the food supply,” said Kelli Hoover, professor of entomology at Pennsylvania State University. The population is seemingly down in some of the areas where they’ve been established the longest, like south-eastern Pennsylvania. In New York, red splats, from eager lanternfly stompers, are a frequent sight on sidewalks. They are now common across the north-east. Harmless to humans, spotted lanternflies can damage trees and fruit crops, and feed on the sap of over 70 different species of host plants.
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