[music]

Brian Lehrer: Brian Lehrer on WNYC, and we'll close out the show today with everything you need to know in the last weeks of summer about lanternflies. Who has a summer of '23 lanternfly story or a question? 212-433-WNYC Why do we ask? Well, if you've stepped outside of your home in our area recently, there is a big chance that you've stepped on at least one spotted lanternfly. Maybe by accident, maybe on purpose.

Right now, these bugs are everywhere. They're gathering in masses in front of buildings in some cases and flying onto unsuspecting pedestrians, sometimes inducing panic among the anti-bug crowd. Not to mention the threat that they may actually pose to certain kinds of trees. Early in the summer, news outlets began reporting that we might see an uptick in the presence of these pesky bugs. At this point, in late summer, it seems those predictions have come to fruition. Now, while spotted lanternflies aren't new, the sheer number of them swarming around our area cannot be ignored. We're going to get to the bottom of this and see if there are any new findings regarding their invasiveness, the threats they may or may not pose, as well as proper ways to handle infestations in our backyards. Joining us now is Jessica Ware, entomologist, associate curator in invertebrate zoology at the American Museum of Natural History, and vice president of the Entomological Society of America. Jessica, thanks for joining us. Welcome back to WNYC.

Jessica Ware: Thank you. Thanks for having me.

Brian Lehrer: Listeners, yes, this is for you too. Oh, boy. The calls are streaming in already, so let me give everybody else the phone number once again, 212-433-WNYC. If you have noticed more spotted lanternflies this year as opposed to last summer or the summer before that, where have you seen them the most, tell us about your encounters? Call or text us at 212-433-WNYC. You can even tweet us your photos and we'll re-tweet them out @BrianLehrer. Questions welcome too for Jessica Ware. Jessica, maybe it's worth asking you to just remind us what a spotted lanternfly actually is and where it fits in to the ecosystem.

Jessica Ware: Sure. Spotted lanternfly, Lycorma delicatula, it sounds like that Cinderella song. I always want to say Bibbidi-bobbidi-boo after I say that, but anyways, [chuckles] that's the Latin name. It is a Hemiptera, it's a true bug, and so it basically feeds on plant sap. They're native to Asia, to China, India, and Vietnam. Really, their day-to-day life is just feeding on plant sap, excreting their waste, finding a mate, laying eggs, and then they die. What gets them in trouble [crosstalk]--

Brian Lehrer: That's a lot like people.

Jessica Ware: Yes, like us. In a lot of ways, as far as lanternflies and a lot like you or I, their goal is to pass their genes on to the next generation. The problem with them is that they are an invasive species here. They're not native to the United States, and our job really as New Yorkers is to stop invasive species from establishing and from spreading. They can be a nuisance, as you mentioned, they can be in really, really large numbers, but what we're concerned about is that they feed on a lot of different host plants. They have a preferred host plant, which is tree of heaven, which is also an invasive species, but they also feed a lot on maple, and on black walnut, and on grapevines. We know that they can cause damage to grape. Grape is an economically important crop, as well as peaches and other tree fruits. We want to try and prevent them from-- They basically, because they're drinking an all liquid diet, their poop is basically like a sugary liquid, and we call it honeydew. Imagine that, so drinking the sugary plant sap, pooping out this sugary excretion, and that basically coats the host plant. It can increase the amount of mold that can grow on the plant, which can damage the plant, but it also attracts other insects which people who are growing grapes, and apples, and peaches, they don't want that.

Brian Lehrer: Are there actually more spotted lanternflies in our area this year? If so, why? They've only made news for the last couple of years. I don't think I ever heard of the spotted lanternfly until last summer.

Jessica Ware: Yes. They first arrived in the United States in 2014 in Pennsylvania. They made it to New Jersey in 2018, and then after that, to New York. The reason why we're starting to see them increase is, unfortunately, they are becoming established in our area. As the population becomes established, it is growing. Individuals find each other, they mate, they each egg mass, can have 30 or 50 nymphs that hatch from it. It's just basically growing exponentially despite active efforts to try and curb their spread.

Brian Lehrer: What is the potential damage that they can do, or they're just by and large annoying?

Jessica Ware: Well, they can be annoying. I would say it's surprising that people feel so annoyed by them because actually, they're very beautiful insects. They have black and white polka-dotted nymphs, very nice colored palette. Then it turns into red and black polka dots. Then, eventually, the adults have a really beautiful striking color. The problem is that they can feed a lot in huge numbers on a plant, which can lead to plant decline. It can cause drooping of host plants. That can cause damage to the host plant. Importantly, this sugary poop that they have can increase mold growth. On economically important crops or on trees that you want to have survive for a long time, that can be problematic. That's really the big concern, is the damage that they can do to the plants. Of course, anytime you have a new invasive species come in, it's taking the spot. There's only a certain amount of resources and space. It's taking a spot in the community, and we don't want this to displace or upset the balance of the ecosystem [inaudible 00:06:35] [crosstalk]--

Brian Lehrer: Sherry in Brooklyn has a spotted lanternfly story. Sherry, you're on WNYC, hello.

Sherry: Well, hi. Good morning. I'd love to do something about this situation. I live on the sixth floor of an apartment building that has a giant tree of heaven in the backyard. It's beautiful, it was a beautiful tree. Excuse me, but then this year, it became totally infested. I could see it all on the branches. My fire escape has become populated with those flies, so I invested in a really good spray bottle because I read that you could kill them with vinegar and soap. Well, it doesn't really work as far as I could tell, they just hop away. I want to find out whose property the tree is on because it's dying right in front of us. It was just a beautiful tree. That's my story.

Brian Lehrer: Sherry, thank you very much. Sherry mentions the tree of heaven, so besides whatever advice you can give her, the first text we got on this topic today an hour ago from somebody who just knew you were going to be coming on later in the show was that the way to get rid of the invasive spotted lanternfly is to get rid of the invasive tree of heaven. I wonder if you can talk about that relationship.

Jessica Ware: I wish it was that easy. It is their preferred host plant, tree of heaven, and certainly removing their preferred host plant, you think that that would have a negative impact on spotted lanternflies, but honestly, they have a really wide feeding range. They can feed on a lot of different types of trees. I mentioned a couple, maple, black walnut, black locust, grapevines. They have over 70 host plants that they can feed on. While getting rid of ailanthus, getting rid of tree of heaven would be probably a good start, they have such varied feeding habits that I don't know that that would be the be-all and end-all solution. In terms of what you might do for the tree of heaven in your backyard, so researchers like Anne Nielsen and Tracy Leskey, they've done research that has tested putting sticky traps, sticky bands around the trunks of trees. There's also a type of trap called a circle trap that you can put around the trunks of trees. Nymphs naturally walk up the bark of trees. As nymphs are walking up the bark of trees, they can get stuck in these sticky traps or in these circle traps, but the research suggests that it actually is most significantly reducing the number of nymphs if you put them over 1 meter high. Normally, I would say, who's going to climb up a meter to put a trap up, but if you're on the sixth floor, I think that's what you said, you're on the sixth floor, maybe you can reach out and put a trap up high in the tree because placing traps or sticky traps higher up in the tree probably is going to be effective. Getting rid of nymphs prevents you from having adults, prevents you from having more egg layers in September, so that can be a good strategy is to try and reduce the number of nymphs that you have.

Brian Lehrer: Reinforcing the sticky trap idea, listener texts in Ridgewood, New Jersey, "My nice came upon an adhesive strip wrapped around a neighbor's tree that had caught many spotted lanternflies, so my sisters and parents who all live in that town purchased these strips. When I visited my parents, the adhesive strip had caught many other types of insects, including bees. Would the expert recommend the use of these strips? Seems like it could have very adverse effects. What about the downside of the sticky traps?

Jessica Ware: It's true. The sticky traps, anything that can stick to it will stick to it, including birds, so people have suggested for sticky traps actually covering them with a mesh that covers over the top that the nymphs would walk underneath, but birds and maybe some other insects wouldn't necessarily walk underneath. Kind of taking advantage of the nymphs ecology of the spotted lanternfly nymph's behavior of crawling up barks rather than insects that might just fly into it. Some of the research does suggest that circle traps are a little bit more effective than sticky traps, although sticky traps are easy to do it yourself.

Brian Lehrer: Judy in Manhattan, you're on WNYC. Hi, Judy.

Judy: Hi. I take long walks in the city, and I see a lot of these lanternflies just at the edge where the building meets the sidewalk, and some of them are on their backs half dead. I saw one fly into the building. I'm starting to say maybe what we are seeing when we are seeing them on the ground is they've already finished their life cycles, and is it worth it for us to actually stamp on them when they're already half dead on the ground because they're not flying away. Actually, one just flew right into the building, boom, and fell down.

Brian Lehrer: Judy, thank you. Yes, one of the things that inspired this segment, Jessica, is that we had seen reports of not just the individual lanternflies that you might see on the ground and maybe you step on them as we've been advised to do, or some in trees, but swarms of them around glass buildings.

Jessica Ware: Yes, they do tend to like to climb up things, and they do tend to do so kind of in aggregate in really large numbers. I've seen reports and people have sent me photos of buildings. I've seen where tree trunks or telephone poles were completely covered. That is a common behavior for a spotted lanternfly. I would say that at the end of the season, so in September, is when they're going to be actively laying, doing oviposition, which we call egg laying. Then, they're going to slowly die off, the eggs can overwinter of course. If you see individuals now, you still probably could prevent some egg laying that would be taking place in September. Ones that are near death probably you're not going to necessarily [chuckles] do too much, but if you see active individuals that are out as adults, it kind of means that we should have tried to nip it in the bud [chuckles] before they became adults. Trying to collect nymphs seems to be a good thing that we should be working towards. You can also scrape off the eggs, so the eggs are laid on the surface of buildings, sometimes I've seen on bumpers of cars, on the bark of trees. The eggs kind of look like a gray old piece of chewing gum or something like that. You can scrape them off, but even doing that, it seems to suggest, and this is Anne Nielsen and Tracy Leskey's work again, that you're only getting about 10% or 20% of the eggs that you're removing from the population. All of these things together might actually help with control, but each individual thing, having a sticky trap, stomping on something on the sidewalk, scraping off of some eggs individually on its own maybe isn't going to get rid of spotted lanternfly, but all of these activities together might help.

Brian Lehrer: Listener writes, "My puppy loves to try to eat them. The internet isn't sure, but says they're probably toxic. If anyone else is in the same situation, don't let them eat them." Do you second that advice with respect to dogs who might want to eat the lanternflies?

Jessica Ware: They're distasteful. There has been work that has showed that they have a foul taste. Often when you see things in nature that are red and black or orange and black, those are warning colorations and they're distasteful. We don't see many mammals really chowing down on them for that very reason. Although, we have found some other things that do like to eat them. I just watched a wasp chowing down on a spotted lanternfly last Thursday. It was really getting in there [laughs] and consuming it until it was gone.

Brian Lehrer: Wow. A wasp, so they have predators other than human shoes.

Jessica Ware: Yes. The yellow jackets, people tend to think of it as an annoyance this time of year, but I was delighted to see it doing its work there. Just chewing and eating. [chuckles]

Brian Lehrer: Yes. Even if they are distasteful to most dogs, apparently this particular puppy likes them. Do you have any reason to believe that they're toxic to the dogs?

Jessica Ware: I don't. I'm not a veterinarian. I would just say that to start out with, but I don't see any reason why. If the dog eats it and feels sick, of course, I would prevent them from continuing to eat it. As far as I know, they'd have to eat a really large quantity to probably have an adverse effect, but you should check with your vet.

Brian Lehrer: Chris in Weehawken, you're on WNYC. Hi, Chris.

Chris: Yes, hi. Good afternoon. I was actually, last summer, I have to say, was probably oddly felt more like peak infestation. I remember going down to the Jersey Shore, Monmouth County, and literally after a high tide coming onto the beach and finding not just shells and seaweed, but carcasses upon carcasses of lanternflies just dead on the beach. It was kind of shocking to the point I would say-- I'm hearing more so this summer from friends that live maybe in Yonkers and in other areas that they're experiencing more of them. My four-year-old daughter, we're teaching her to respect the ecosystem around us, with the exception of the lanternflies. Stepping on that is hopefully doing a good service, whereas we don't harm other bugs. What I'm wondering is are we at peak infestation with this? What should we expect in seasons to come? What about other parts of the world? Are they experiencing this, or is it just feeling singular to our area right now? Thank you.

Jessica Ware: Yes, those are great questions. First of all, I would say that it does seem like, even though we see them in really large numbers, they are still patchily distributed across the different states that they inhabit. As I say, they're an invasive species. They're kind of across the Eastern United States. As far as we know, those are the main areas where they're an invasive species. They're native to Asia, to China, India, and Vietnam. I think that getting your daughter to respect and understand that they're doing actually a job for biodiversity by removing and preventing the establishment of invasive species, that kind of decreases the threat to biodiversity because invasive species are a threat in general to biodiversity. It's not just the spotted lanternfly. There are several invasive species that arrive on our shores constantly because we are a port for transoceanic commerce. Being ever watchful [laughs] for invasive species is a really good skill to teach your children. Then, just in terms of whether we are at its peak, I don't think we know yet. It does seem like the numbers are increasing. In parts of New Jersey, we had a lot of hot weather, and normally, eggs need to have a cold snap over winter before they hatch, and we didn't get that the last couple of winters. Perhaps in some parts of their range, the populations are growing slightly slower than what we expected, and in other parts, they're growing just as we expected at kind of a rapid rate.

Brian Lehrer: Interesting. By the way, you mentioned the wasp chowing down on a lanternfly. Someone just tweeted us a gray picture of a yellow jacket feasting on a recently swatted lanternfly, and the caption is "Yum, honeydew." Maybe we'll retweet that one out so people can see that yellow jacket chowing down on a lanternfly. There we have to leave it with Jessica Ware, entomologist, associate curator in invertebrate zoology at the American Museum of Natural History, and vice president of the Entomological Society of America. Thank you so much for joining us.

Jessica Ware: Thank you for having me.

Brian Lehrer: That's the Brian Lehrer show for today. Produced by Mary Croke, Lisa Allison, Amina Srna, Carl Boisrond, Esperanza Rosenbaum, and Zach Gottehrer-Cohen. Juliana Fonda at the audio controls. Stay tuned for All Of It.

[music]

Copyright © 2023 New York Public Radio. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use at www.wnyc.org for further information.

New York Public Radio transcripts are created on a rush deadline, often by contractors. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of New York Public Radio’s programming is the audio record.