Some are dead. Some are twitching. Many are still very much alive.
The insects, native to Southeast Asia, are spreading so fast in the United States experts say it has become challenging to control and manage them. And the experts are sending a clear message: If you see it, squash it.
As temperatures get warmer because of the climate crisis and the growing season gets longer, the lanternflies could be here to stay, and they are spreading to new areas.
“It’s a very distinctive and characteristic bug, and it is establishing in more places,” Julie Urban, research associate professor of entomology at Pennsylvania State University, told CNN. “It’s possible that if your plants are around longer, lanternflies in warmer areas could persist longer and maybe lay an additional clutch,” or egg mass.
Spotted lanternflies prefer warm climates, so as temperatures rise in the northern states, the bugs’ range could only expand. Moreover, with colder temperatures, “it typically takes not just the first hard freeze, but a couple of hard freezes to kill them, and so cold snaps certainly aren’t going to knock back the population,” Urban added.
Eshenaur said he and other researchers believe the insect first arrived in the US in 2014, having stowed away on a shipment of landscape stone from South Korea, where the species is also invasive. The first known infestation broke out in Berks County,…
Source : cnn
