Spotted lanternflies — which are back in the Philadelphia region — have great hitchhiking abilities that have proven to be crucial to their ability to rapidly spread around the country and their staying power, writes Alan Yu for WHYY.
Since the invasive pest was first spotted in Berks County a decade ago, researchers have been able to learn more about the damage they cause.
While the damage on row crops and hardwoods has been much lower than originally feared, spotted lanternflies have proven to extensively affect grapevines, posing a major threat to them.
Scientists have also focused on discovering how the insect spreads. Johanna Elsensohn, an applied ecologist at the U.S. Department of Agriculture, recently performed an experiment to see how good spotted lanternflies were at hitching rides on cars.
She put the bugs in various stages of life on a car and blasted them with fans blowing wind of up to 62 miles per hour. Even at the highest speed, the pests, at all life stages, were able to hang on to at least one part of the car.
“And that’s really bad news because females could be mated at this stage,” said Elsensohn.
Read more about spotted lanternflies and the new details about the damage they cause in WHYY.
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