The Spotted Lanternfly is an invasive species that has been terrorizing the ecosystem in Virginia since 2018. It has no natural predators and they have been shown to have zero benefits for Virginia. The Lanternfly’s diet includes native trees causing harm. They have also shown to encourage fungal disease.

It is likely that the Lanternfly arrived in the US by a boat that was contaminated with their eggs. The eggs can camouflage against wood and are very difficult to spot, making it easy for them to arrive on cargo shipments from Asia.

The Lanternfly is likely to have spread because of the large amount of goods imported from China where the insect is native. In 2004 and 2008, the insect was found in Korea and Japan respectively. This makes sense because most of China’s trade is in East Asia.

This pattern is also shared in the US because the highest Lanternfly population density is around major import areas such as the Chesapeake Bay and Southern California. There are also very few Lanternflys in the mid west.

In both adolescent and adult form, the Lanternfly causes mold, wilting, and die back while they are swarming. The pests are only able to survive because of another one of America’s invasive species. The adults cause most of their damage to a tree called the Tree of Heaven. An invasive species that was originally from Taiwan and China but were brought to Philadelphia in the late 1700’s. It has since taken hold and been out-competing native plants for water and resources ever since. The Lanternfly is only able to take hold in the United States because of their native food source still being in America.

While the government has taken action by telling people to kill the Lanternfly on site, the population has still been increasing. This is because of the lack of natural predators and the difficulty in finding their eggs and killing them.