4924 - It's still 2020, right?

Time for some more bad news. The spotted lanternfly.

Here's a snippet from the long article that's in the October Smithsonian Magazine.

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They found the first spotted lanternfly on September 22, 2014. Found it in Berks County. Just a few miles from Eaton Farms.

“It’s a day you don’t forget.” Dana Rhodes is the state plant regulatory official for the Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture. “Our entomology team received a phone call from an employee with our game commission. They had heard us advise, ‘If you see something unusual, give us a call.’ They noticed a smell and a lot of insects around some tree of heaven. Three of our team went out there and found spotted lanternfly.”

Spotted lanternfly: Lycorma delicatula, ruinous and beautiful, the size of your thumb and a destroyer of worlds. Spotted wings, often a silvery blue-gray, a sort of iridescent gunmetal, with a bright red-orange flamenco petticoat beneath. In every stage from nymph to adulthood, this is a stunning bug. Below-average fliers, but decent gliders and hoppers.

To feed, they unfurl their mouthparts and penetrate the phloem, or vascular tissue, of the tree or vine. They drain nutrients from the plant, and excrete sugar water. This they can do by the thousands or tens of thousands. Lanternfly feed most successfully on another invasive from Asia: Ailanthus altissima. The 'tree of heaven'.

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Like I said, it's a long article as are all articles in the Smithsonian Magazine. But if you're into outdoors, you might want to read the whole thing.