i swear if another lantern fly jumps on me

Spotted lanternflies really are amazing to me with how stupid they are. Literally saw one jump and smack right into a light pole.

By the time to government tells you to be on the lookout for an invasive species you can bet it’s already firmly established itself and is impossible to get rid of at that point.

I spent a summer working with some arborists.
They called it "the tree of he*l"

Its actually insane how ive went to never seeing a lantern fly my entire life to them being all over the place. I will always remember first seeing them at a home depot parking lot before a heard about them and I was so confused. I was like what is this bug? Why are they so many of them? Why have I never seen them before?

this bug literally horrifies me. as a nyc resident I remember that one year that they were everywhere and I think that permanently changed my brain chemistry, and I cannot view anything about them as cool. im pretty sure that walking past them often triggers their jump response so they will just fling themselves on you, and they're hard to get off. one landed in my hair, hitchhiked on my finger for quite a bit before I actually noticed, and one almost fell in my mouth.

edit: I do not care that they don't bite or aren't harmful, it's still a jumpscare

What I love most about these very nice Flying shots is, that I never realized how some Insects would put their front legs out above their head to fly. Really cute!

I don’t know how people think the spotted lantern flies are amazing, they are grotesque in my opinion

I seriously love the look of this bug but I absolutely am an absolute monster towards them at my job. I have to take them out 😞

I found hundreds of those dead lanternflies in Maryland 2 years ago…they are so beautiful!! Later, I noticed signs saying to kill them all

An interesting fact about the spotted lantern fly is that the nymph looks remarkably similar to a weevil. The difference is the weevils have shells and spotted lantern fly nymphs do not. It results in a game I call “Weevil or evil.”

Here in NJ when these lantern flies really blew up in 2020 it felt like they were going to take over. You’d see thousands and thousands of nymphs on one tree. But in the last few years, in addition to human population control, I’ve started to notice local predators taking more interest in them. Birds seem more willing to pick them off, as well as orb weaver spiders. I don’t think eradication is on the table anymore, they seem to be too entrenched, but I’m more hopeful now that the local fauna is adjusting a bit.

Spotted lanternflies are kinda cute. I wish they weren't so destructive

they jump like frogs into the air, this looks so insane

Weird, Ive never seen that moth in person before but been dealing with the lantern flies for 2 or 3 years now in my backyard. (MD my entire life)

One time I saw a WHOLE OFFICE BUILDING covered in LANTERNFLIES

Ailanthus webworm moth is actually helping control tree of heaven which is invasive.

Such an awesome video! Even though the lanternfly is invasive, its still so so so amazing seeing up close and action shots of these two insects!

I see the spotted lanternfly EVERYWHERE!

The lantern flies look incredible cool. The colors are insane. It almost makes me feel bad for killing every one I see. Almost.