We thought maybe we weren’t going to be bothered with Spotted Lanternflies this year, but a few weeks ago we began seeing them again.

Cerwin got out his trusty sprayer and attached it to our lawnmower and went to war against them.

The next evening as I enjoyed the setting sun, I wondered what was glittering on the ground under our Sunset Maple Tree.

To my surprise, I noticed that it was a lot of dead lantern flies.

They are so pretty, but very invasive – especially to fruit.

The spotted lanternfly is a planthopper indigenous to parts of China, India, and Vietnam. It has spread invasively to Japan, South Korea, and the United States. It flies, and also jumps.

Lantern Flies were first recorded in the United States in September 2014. As of 2020 it is an invasive species in the Delaware Valley, northern Delaware, eastern Maryland, eastern Pennsylvania, New Jersey, New York, Connecticut, northern Virginia, Indiana, and Ohio. In 2021, a single dead lanternfly was collected in Kansas.