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Brian: Brian Lehrer on WNYC. Now a conversation about a bug that you're supposed to kill and some creatures were killing too many of. Have you noticed a new colorful bug in your backyard or in the parks that you visit? It's pretty, beige and black and white with spots and bright red wings that you can see when its wings are open. It's new to the neighborhood in our area, and if you spot this spotted lanternfly, that's its name. The spotted lanternfly, your instructions from the government are clear squash it. It's an invasive species, that's why. That hitchhiked with a shipment from Asia to Pennsylvania and it's made it to New Jersey and Staten Island and now to Central Park and Riverside Park in Manhattan.

I'm told it even showed up in a 4H exhibit at the Kansas State Fair. While when we're worried about the die-offs of say monarch butterflies and bees, are we being asked to step on this button? For more on this invader and the insects we need I'm joined by entomologist Jessica Ware, associate curator and invertebrate zoology at the American Museum of Natural History and vice president of the Entomological Society of America. Dr. Ware thank you so much for joining us. Welcome to WNYC.

Jessica: Thanks for having me.

Brian: An entomologist studies words an entomologist studies insects right?

Jessica: [laughs] That's right.

Brian: I learned in college zoology that you're supposed to say zoology, not zoology. Is that right?

Jessica: I do say Zoology, so maybe I bucked the trend. I guess I'm a rebel.

Brian: Maybe my professor was just, old-timey in that respect. The New York City Parks Department website reminds us, we aren't allowed to harm wildlife, but they're making an exception for this bug, the spotted lanternfly. It's not directly harmful to people or pets, though, is that correct?

Jessica: Yes. They really are not going to harm you. They live their life outside of the human condition but they are a potential economic threat for agriculture. We really want to try and prevent their spread. We want to contain them and prevent their spread. This is why we're really urging people to make observations, let people know where you're seeing this bug, and squash it.

Brian: Listener's question for you. Have you spotted these spotted lanternflies? Did you rise to the challenge and step on it? Do you have a question for entomologist Jessica Ware about this bug or about how to help the bees or butterflies that there are now too few of. Tweet at Brian Lehrer or call us at 646-435-7280, 646-435-7284. Jessica Ware, why are we being deputized to go after this public enemy number one bug?

Jessica: Well, I think that the main goal of what we are trying to do as entomologists is to prevent the spread of this really invasive bug. This bug can feed on over 70 host plants, which is a pretty big range, and it really prefers the tree of heaven. As you know if you've ever driven on the turnpike, the tree of heaven is everywhere. It really loves to grow in clumps along highways and undisturbed areas. It was on the cover of a tree grows in Brooklyn, if you remember that story.

Tree of Heaven is everywhere. Its main preferred host plant is everywhere, which means the potential damage that this bug could cause is actually pretty extreme. With that in mind, we want to try and stop-- We've had many invasive species arrive on the shores here and not all of them have been stopped, and they've spread across the entire United States. Our goal is for Atlanta [unintelligible 00:04:15] to prevent that from happening.

Brian: There are pictures of the full-grown insects and their eggs on the New York City parks website and we'll link to that on our web page so citizen exterminators know what to look for. What's the best way to kill them if you're squeamish?

Jessica: Well, the thing is that these are very good at jumping. They're actually in a group that's called the hoppers or treehoppers or leafhoppers. If you go towards them, they often will just jump and start flying, so you can just step on them with your shoe is probably the easiest way. Really, even if you feel very, very squeamish, even just making observations of where you're seeing adults, where you're seeing nymphs, which don't have the red, they look like a beautiful black with white polka dot little insect, or do you see egg masses which look like old gray gum stuck to the bark or even the sides of buildings. Any observations that you make are going to be helpful for people to understand where there's the bulk of the individuals. Stepping on them with your shoe is a good plan, is a good method.

Brian: Should we report spotting them?

Jessica: Yes, you should. You might think, "Oh, there's so many of them. Entomologists don't need to know where there's a few more." That's not true. We need to know where they are. You can write to your local entomology department. You can write to your local university. There are extension websites that are out there on spy lanternfly, all of which have contact information for you to report. If you see something, say something. It's a slogan that we are familiar with here in New York. The same thing applies for the spotted lanternfly. If you see them, if you see signs of the nymphs, if you see the adults if you see eggs, say something. Let people know where you're finding them.

Brian: Lisa in West New York, you're on WNYC. Hi, Lisa.

Lisa: Hi. We have a lot of them. We're on Boulevard east and 16th Street and West New York. When I first saw this story in the Bergen Record, and I posted it on our Facebook page, so a lot of people started reporting them. I see them in the ground level on the 21st floor but it's impossible. She just said, "Call your local entomology department." What's that? Where do I find that? You make it impossible to report it. The article said, all these different counties have the infestation but so do we and how do we let the right person know about it?

Jessica: That's a good question. Sometimes it can be hard to know who to contact. For New Jersey, the New Jersey Department of Agriculture, for New York, the New York Department of Agriculture. Each of them have websites with links and phone numbers where you can call and just leave a voicemail. Then some of them have electronic forms where you can indicate when you've seen one. You can also contact [unintelligible 00:07:07] University. [unintelligible 00:07:08] University has an extension department with people that are dedicated that are working specifically on spotted lanternfly, so does Penn State, so does Cornell University.

There's a few different ways that you can get the information to the experts.

Brian: Lisa, I hope that's helpful. We're getting all kinds of calls so you know that our lines are completely full. Maybe that doesn't surprise you because the infestation is that big. I'm going to take the most surprising one because people are calling about their backyards. It was surprising enough that that color. I saw one around a high-rise building, but Ingrid in Woodside is going to top them all I think. Ingrid, you're on WNYC. Hello.

Ingrid: Hi, I was in the flushing line yesterday afternoon and almost reaching Grand Central. All of a sudden I noticed this fly on my arm and I got up and a person close to me said, "This is a Chinese fly. It is very bad." She said we need to kill it. She took her shoe off and killed it.

Jessica: Well, bravo to your fellow subway rider. It actually doesn't surprise me that you would have had one on you because these insects are really good hitchhikers. That's part of why we're really urging people to make observations and to keep their eyes open because these bugs can basically hitch a ride on you. They hitched your ride on you on the train line. They can hitch you right on your car. They can hitch you right on your luggage. They can hitch your ride. We think that's how they got here. They hitched a ride on a shipment of something that came into the states.

Because they're going to just cling to things and then being carried to new locations, that's what poses one of the biggest risks for the spread of this bug, They'll just going to hitchhike to other parts of the United States and that's the fear. It doesn't surprise me that it stayed cling to you. Just like all insects, they have six legs and they're [unintelligible 00:09:16] have little claws that can cling to fabric. They can stay stuck to you waiting hopefully, to start flying as soon as you had gotten out of the subway station to their new spot.

Brian: Even on the seven train.

Jessica: Even on the seven train. They can't eat on the seven train but they can take a ride and then get off on the next person to go to another location. They're very good dispersers which is one of the things that make them an excellent invader.

Brian: Maybe we can get them for fair beating. Its name makes it sound very benign, spotted lanternfly but does it actually fly? You talked about it being a hopper, does it actually fly?

Jessica: Yes, they do fly. When they fly, that's when you see that striking hind wing, which is bright red with black polka dots on it. They're not the type of butterfly flight that you might be familiar with, that flapping style flight where they're hovering in the air for long periods of time. They don't fly in that way. They can fly for feet, they can fly for several meters but it's not very high up in the air [unintelligible 00:10:28]. When you see them, honestly, they are so beautiful. [laughs] It really makes you feel sad to chase them with your shoe but yes, they definitely can fly.

Brian: Mandy in Brooklyn, you're on WNYC. Hi, Mandy.

Mandy: Hi, thanks for taking my call.

Brian: Sure.

Mandy: I'm calling from Brooklyn, I live across the street from Prospect Park, on the 8th floor of a building. I'm killing, probably, two or three of these a day. It started several weeks ago, that I noticed, anyway. When I didn't hear you mention Prospect Park and Brooklyn, I'm curious how prevalent they are being reported here and what else we can be doing, is there something I can do in my garden to prevent them hatching again next spring, and what is happening in the park to protect the park?

Brian: I guess they transferred from the Seven train to the number two at Times Square and rode down to you. Professor Ware?

Jessica: It wouldn't surprise me if they had done so. Well, certainly you can mix some plants to reduce the available habitat and space that they're going to have for next year. One thing you can do is, if you have your own property and they're any tree of heaven on your property, you can try and have that removed. Now, cutting tree of heaven isn't a great idea because it actually will just make more sprouted, more shoots come up. There are professional people that can work to get rid of tree of heaven if you do have it in your yard.

That is important, that's an important part of the spotted lanternfly control because that is their preferred host plant. Tree of heaven looks a lot like sumac, it's called Chinese sumac. It smells kind of peanut butter or burnt peanut butter. If you're not sure whether it's tree of heaven or not, there are many arborists that could point you in the right direction. That's one thing you could do. You could also look around for egg masses and as I say, the egg masses look almost-- To me, they always look like dried-up gum. It looks like a grayish, scaly deposit that'll either be on [unintelligible 00:12:32], even on cars, or on the sides of buildings of your residence or of your apartment building and certainly, on the barks of trees. If you see those, you can scrape them off with a knife, you can scrape them off, and try and destroy the egg masses.

You can dispose of them inside of a plastic bag and that will prevent new nymphs from being able to hatch from the egg mass the following spring. Those are some things that you can but you can do. Definitely, if you're seeing them in Brooklyn, if you're seeing them in Prospect Park, you can report them. As I mentioned, Cornell, [unintelligible 00:13:07] to Penn State, to any of the extension agencies. You can also use iNaturalist. iNaturalist is a citizen science app that you can get for your phone and you can report where you're seeing a spotted lanternfly, just by taking a photo.

Sometimes they're hard to take a photo of because they're very, very quick to jump around. If you're doing your mission, as you've been tasked to do, to try and squash one of these bugs, you can always snap a photo first for iNaturalist as well.

Brian: We all know people who we would describe as, "wouldn't hurt a fly," who might literally, with a fly in their home, try to capture it in a jar and release it into the wild. Do we really have to kill them?

Jessica: That's a really good question, Brian, and it's a tough one. As an entomologist, I would say-- I know that these are bugs, they drink, they have sucking mouthparts and they drink the [unintelligible 00:14:10], they drink the sap from trees. If you're just on a liquid diet, what comes out is basically liquid. It's a sugary liquid and that excretion, it's called honeydew, it actually can cover the trees and the leaves, and it allows this mold, this fungus, [unintelligible 00:14:29] mold to grow. That can actually damage the tree.

We expect the economic devastation for agriculture to be quite extreme. Knowing that and knowing that we live in a community where we want our fellow farmers, and people who work in agriculture, to be able to thrive, we want the United States where they're not overrun with invasive species of insects. Then yes, for those reasons, I would say it's not a bad idea to follow the directions of extension specialists and squash the insect. If you can't bring yourself to do it, even just observations, so that we can prevent the spread of these insects, are important.

Making observations, letting people know exactly where there's high densities of these insects are important and also where there's high density of tree of heaven. That's another good observation that you can make.

Brian: As I understand it, one reason that we're being asked to squash these spotted lanternflies, is to avoid having to use pesticides to handle the problem. There are studies that show, unlike the lanternflies, many insect species are in decline. Deforestation and pesticides are thought to be big causes of that. Can you talk a little bit about what may sound like a duality or a contradiction?

Jessica: Yes. Whenever we talk about trying to save insects, people don't usually want to save things that are ugly, like maggots. They really usually want to save things that are beautiful, like the spotted lanternfly. In this case, it's a 180 flip here. This is a really beautiful insect but if we don't do our job right now, by squashing them, then the other options that we have available to us, to prevent huge economic losses in agriculture, would be to use broad-spectrum insecticides.

There are some specific insecticides also, that do work for Hemiptera, which is the order to which these bugs belong. We want to try and avoid that because we know from, in terms of insect decline, is that pesticide use, from the general public as well as in agriculture, seems to be one of the leading causes that we're seeing for this massive drop in number of species and abundance of species in habitats globally.

We want to try and preserve insects, yes, but in this case, squashing this spotted lanternfly, this highly invasive insect, is going to help us prevent having to use insecticides that might have downstream negative effects, that would exacerbate an existing problem of insect decline. Of course, it's not just the pesticides that are leading to insect decline, there are many other decisions that we could make in our day-to-day life, that would prevent or at least maybe, hopefully, lessen the extreme acceleration of species loss that we're seeing.

We could dim our lights, we don't have to have bright light shining all night. There are many insects that are attracted to light, that just basically exhaust themselves thinking it's the moon and flying towards it. As well as it prevents bugs or insects that actually communicate with light, like beetles, like fireflies, from being able to find their mates. We could leave more open space, we could plant native plants. We could make a lot of decisions that would ultimately have really great impacts on insect populations.

Brian: I'm glad you mentioned so many of those things. You are a credentialed bug expert, it looks like we have a licensed tree expert calling up. We're going to match you two up. Sam in Short Hills, you're on WNYC. Hi, Sam.

Jessica: Hi, Sam.

Sam: Hi, can you hear me?

Brian: Yes.

Sam: I'm a licensed tree expert in the state of New Jersey. I just figured I'd call in because I'm driving around my territory and I'm a little bit bored. I figured I'd-- I don't know, maybe add any insight that anyone wanted in terms of the [unintelligible 00:18:30] and the life cycle of the insect, or all of the above.

Brian: Maybe you could add your observations since this bug attacks trees. What are you seeing?

Sam: I'm certainly seeing them go after Ailanthus trees, the tree of heaven. They're definitely attracted to that, primarily. On the whole, we're seeing them on pretty much all deciduous trees. More and more I'm seeing them on walnuts, quite specifically. They seem to love that. They seem to love fruit trees, in general. They seem to be a huge fan of Japanese snowbell, as well as red maples. With the exception of black walnuts, something that we're really finding on the whole, is that they seem to be really attracted to trees with smooth bark, as opposed to ridged and furrowed bark, which is pretty interesting.

My guess is that it probably accommodates their proboscis, their mouthpiece, which is a lot like that of a mosquito, actually plunging into the trunk. That would be my personal guess but somebody else might have further insight.

Brian: Those are interesting observations, do you think any of those patterns that you just described provide clues as to how to control this bug?

Sam: Not really. My personal feeling is that we're going to be living with this for a very long time. Certainly, it might help to suppress some degree of the population by just swatting at them or stomping on them, but I think that as time goes on, we're going to see higher and higher volumes of this insect and something that in my personal opinion and from what I've read is probably an indicator that they're going to be around for a while.

It doesn't seem like they have a really significant capacity to actually kill trees, which in my mind is somewhat of an indicator that unlike a lot of invasive insects that do kill trees, they likely won't come to a point where they decimate their target host and then move on to a different like geographical part of the globe. I think they're just going to hang out for the foreseeable future. [crosstalk]

Brian: Sam, I'm curious and I'm sure a lot of our listeners are curious, considering how you started your call referring to yourself as a licensed tree expert. What a license is that and I'm sorry that it sounds like a boring job from what you said, but--

[laughter]

Sam: No, it's actually-- I like it. Maybe I pitched it as a boring job. It's license with the New Jersey Department of environmental protection with just regard to tree care.

Brian: Thank you very much for your contribution, Sam. Dr. Ware a last thought.

Jessica: I definitely think Sam's observations match what the entomological sciences, we know that Black Walnut, Red Maple, River Birch, Willow, all grapes, apples, peaches these are all really favored. Ailanthus the tree of heaven is their number one preferred host plant, but they're everywhere. I think this is a chance for us to rally together as a community. We want to support our colleagues and friends and family and agriculture. We want to have delicious grapes and apples and peaches that we can consume and so if we see these insects, if we see their eggs we need to do something.

Brian: There we leave it with entomologists, Jessica Ware, Associate Curator in invertebrate zoology, Okay, zoology, at the American Museum of Natural History and vice-president of the Entomological Society of America soon to be its president. Thank you so much. This was really informative. I could tell from our callers that they really appreciated you.

Jessica: Thanks for having me, wonderful to talk with you.

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