Spotted lanternflies spotted across Long Island
There is a new resident species on Long Island, and it might be making itself at home in backyards across the region. Since 2020, New York State has identified spotted lanternflies throughout the island, all boroughs, and areas upstate, despite various efforts to control the population.
Spotted lanternflies are a species of planthoppers, insects known for jumping from one plant to another, feeding on plant juices. They are native to eastern Asia and are believed to have come to the US on a stone shipment to Pennsylvania, according to a statement from the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation.
Since their presumed arrival in 2012, the bugs have established survival and perseverance throughout the Northeast. They were first identified in New York on Staten Island, but now can be found all throughout Nassau County by the tens of thousands.
“There are concerns that the spotted lanternflies feed on agricultural species, and also both non-native and native plants,” said Jane Jackson from the North Shore Land Alliance. She explained that the future of the local ecosystem “remains to be determined” if the species is not controlled.
The insects can be recognized in distinct phases throughout their year-long life cycle but are most notably apparent by their white spots and jumping movements. Smaller, newly hatched lanternflies, called nymphs, begin to appear in May. As the insect grows and the summer unfolds, they become larger, eventually taking on their distinctive red coloration. Around late July to mid-August, you can begin to recognize the lanternfly in its adult form - gray wings and black spots. The bugs typically live until December and lay their eggs in the fall.
The State Agriculture Department has considered the species to be invasive and “has taken an aggressive approach to managing SLF in New York State, including conducting surveys of high-risk areas across the State, implementing an external quarantine that restricts the movement of goods brought into New York from quarantined areas, inspecting nursery stock, stone shipments, and commercial transports from those quarantine areas, and launching a comprehensive education and outreach campaign to enlist the public’s help in reporting SLF,” according to Hanna Birkhead, the associate director of public information.
The Department works closely with the United States Department of Agriculture, the New York State Department of Environment Conservation, and the New York State Office of Parks, Recreation, and Historic Preservation in responding to the presence of the bugs.
The insects can be found outside feeding on plants, particularly the tree of heaven, an invasive deciduous tree species also native to Asia. They tend to congregate and are known to suck the sap out of their plant of choice, though they only really do damage to plant species that are also considered invasive, according to John Di Leonardo, president of Humane Long Island, the leading animal advocacy organization on Long Island.
“I think that spotted lanternflies are here to stay,” Di Leonardo explains. “They’re just trying to survive, and honestly, they’re consuming a lot of non-native plants. If we’re saying non-native is bad, invasive is bad, then we can be happy that these guys are helping clear out the tree of heavens while they’re here.”
Despite the insect’s potentially helpful nature, the state agriculture department continues to implement control measures to help combat the perseverance of the species. Emily Ordonez of the department’s public information office explains that if you are to spot any of the spotted lanternflies in Nassau County, the appropriate response is to squash or step on them.
“SLF threatens the agriculture and forestry industries, including apples, grapes, hops, maple, walnut, and others, and is also a nuisance pest. SLF nymphs and adults feed on over 70 different plants with piercing-sucking mouthparts,” Ordonez said. “With each female SLF eliminated, we are theoretically reducing next year’s population of SLF by 60-100, so we very much appreciate everyone doing their part to stop this pest.”
Despite this, the population growth of the spotted lanternflies in the Northeast during recent years can be considered unmanageable and attempts to continue eradicating the bugs are “a fool’s errand,” according to Humane Long Island.
Di Leonardo said various attempts to spray chemicals and set traps to damage the insects do more harm to the environment than the bugs themselves do.
“There was a lot of misinformation going out there that these animals are somehow harmful to humans, to many native plants, to pets, but all of that, pretty much, has been debunked,” said Di Leonardo. “They were originally saying that we were in danger of losing mature hardwood and forest to these animals. Now, you know, while they may feed on some of these, they pose almost no danger to them. The plants nearly always recover, with the exception of the tree of heaven and other invasive species.”
