The spotted lanternfly is now in Illinois | Hacker News Reader

The spotted lanternfly is now in Illinois

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64 pointsgmays63 comments

I'm 'fortunate' to live near the US 'ground zero' for these and the stinkbug. The lanternfly seems pretty rare now, but those stupid stinkbugs (brown marmorated stink bug) are still everywhere.

From what I understand, the lanternfly is worse for crops, but the stinkbug, in my opinion is a far worse residential pest. They fly like they're drunk; constantly crashing into things with an audible clunk, and they're able to sneak through cracks/holes that don't seem possible. It's almost impossible to actually exclude them from your house, and once they're in, there's not many good ways to kill them without releasing their nasty odor. Even squashing them with a folded-over paper towel, the stink can still get on your fingers.

The best way I've found to kill them is to use an inverted air-duster spray, where the cold liquid propellant instantly freezes them before they release their malodorous oil. They drop off what they were clinging to, and they can be thrown away.

Fingers crossed I have not seen the lantern fly's in Michigan yet. Stinkbugs were more prevalent about 2 years ago, but not as much recently.

The stink bugs are my arch nemesis as their scent chemical is probably the most repulsive scent imaginable for me. It smells exactly like cilantro, too. When I lived in Virginia they were everywhere.

My stink bug weapon is a 2-liter soda bottle filled about 50% with warm water blended with dish soap. I fill a bottle with warm water, drizzle some soap inside, shake it up and it is good to go. I will walk around my home with the bottle slightly squeezed so that once I release the squeeze it creates a vacuum effect. I'll position the nozzle of the bottle right below the bug as I release and it sucks them in every time. They fall into a foamy bubble bath and die a silent death. I've collected hundreds of them with this method. Fortunately this year I have only seen 2 on my property.

protip do not use a vacuum cleaner to suck up stink bugs as it will essentially turn the exhaust port on the vacuum into a cilantro/stinkbug scent emitter machine

I've made the vacuum mistake before, and I had to throw the vacuum bag out well before its time. Same issue if I crush one and throw it in the trash can - now I have that smell until I take the trash out.

Based on some responses, it's clear there must be varying ability to smell/be offended by the stink chemicals. Maybe it is like cilantro in more than just odor, because I am part of the unlucky genetic group that finds cilantro to taste like soap.

Seems like a reasonable speculation. The ability to smell that asparagus smell in urine is also genetic, if I remember correctly.

https://i.imgur.com/Cvysv0l.png

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OR6A2

My first thought would have been to use a vacuum cleaner, so thanks for sharing that tip haha

> The best way I've found to kill them is to use an inverted air-duster spray, where the cold liquid propellant instantly freezes them before they release their malodorous oil.

This also works instantaneously on all sorts of household pests, including roaches.

In the U.S., these spray cans typically have a bitterant that smells horrible and sticks to your hands. It’s especially bad if you turn them upside down. It’s not worth covering your house in that smelly stuff IMO.

I bought a Bugzooka[1] and it works great to catch stink bugs and similar slow insects. It safely traps them alive, does not stink the house, and allows me to easily catch 10-15 bugs before I need to empty it outside. It is humane, kind of fun, and I can operate it from a safe 2-3ft distance. Plus my 3 year old absolutely loves it!

1. BugZooka WB100 Bug Catcher Vacuum for Fly https://a.co/d/a2Tr7rr (just a happy customer, no connection to the product/company)

I’m in NYS and we get lots of stink bugs. I usually just grab them with a paper towel, squeeze it, and throw it in the garbage or toilet.

The thing is, I’ve never actually smelled the odor.

Same. Never smelled them. I don’t squeeze, just wrap them up so they can’t get out. Maybe I should squeeze one eventually. Sadly my chickens don’t seem overly interested.

It's not fitting for all insects but in the house I use a small cordless Dirty Devil vac. Works great on flies in the window.

Bug a salt. It’s wonderful fun. If you can stomach “assault guns. “ I can and it’s great and wonderfully effective. Also kinda fun too. I hate flys. Stink bugs, meh.

> there's not many good ways to kill them without releasing their nasty odor

Handheld vacuum cleaner, then empty outside after they've starved to death (about a day). No mess, no fuss. Gruesome, but very satisfying.

Virtually any detergent will kill stinkbugs.

Your options are to put them in a container with a a weak dish- or hand-soap solution (a mug or yoghurt tub with a few drops of detergent + water will do the trick). They'll die in a minute or so. You'll get some smell though it's usually not too strong if you avoid crushing them. Dispose of the dead ones within a day.

You can also use a (diluted) detergent spray, and apply that directly to groups of the insects, particularly where they're gathered on exterior walls, plants, etc. That's effective diluted to 25%, and almost certainly further.

Any detergent seems to be effective, specific brands don't much matter. If you need a specific recommendation, a cheap Dawn detergent should work.

For a passive solution: soapy water + vinegar traps can be used. Tubs, buckets, reused plastic food containers, aluminium foil pans or trays, roasting pans, etc., all make excellent traps.

See: <https://yewtu.be/watch?v=DNjzdH45XT4>

And a larger DIY insecticide-based trap: <https://yewtu.be/watch?v=AZxkmmImRIc&listen=false>

Diatomaceous earth should also be effective.

Why in the world would you go to such elaborate lengths to kill a stinkbug in your house?

They don't bite or sting, and they're really crap at evasive manoeuvres. They don't want to be inside any more than you want them to be.

Just pick them up and toss them outside. No need to get medieval.

I've found as soon as I touch/disturb one, it excretes its stink oil onto my fingers. The smell also permeates the room a bit.

I beg to differ on the 'they don't want to be inside' bit. I think that's exactly what they want, since they tend to swarm enclosed structures in the Fall. I assume they prefer a climate controlled house during Winter like most other insects/animals would if given the option.

I may have underestimated the population and behaviour of stink bugs in the broader world.

I've never had to deal with more than a few at a time, and they have always been pretty docile/non-reactionary creatures.

They want to be inside of your house in the northern US, this time of year when it gets cold they will crawl in any opening. Then they die because they can't get back outside.

> They don't want to be inside any more than you want them to be.

Huh? The brown marmorated stink bugs start migrating to homes this time of year in the north.

> Just pick them up and toss them outside. No need to get medieval.

Is allowing them to slowly freeze to death medieval? That's what's going to happen during the winter in the north.

I just grab a sheet of paper, scoop them up, take them outside, then squish as they go into the trash. They’re usually quite content to just walk up onto the paper and go for a ride.

I gently pick up the stinkbugs and toss them outside. Works great. Sure, one still gets me once in a while, but it's extremely rare.

Fortunately the "Samurai Wasp" is now in the US and building numbers, it parasitizes BMSB. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trissolcus_japonicus

I grab them with a tissue, and flush them down the toilet. Haven't smelled them once.

I'm in Pittsburgh, and they are everywhere. Have you ever seen a place overrun during a cicada emergence? There's about that many. Every time I take a half-hour walk around the neighborhood, I kill at least 10, sometimes 50 or so. I've noticed that they like dark things/places and humming noises, like power poles with transformers on top and rail stations.

My strategy: approach them from their front and stomp on them. They like to jump forward, so coming at them from any other direction is less successful.

I figured that I would find one inside my house at some point, and found a dead one under the dining room table a month ago.

In eastern PA:

* <= 2019 : awareness but didn’t see many

* 2020 : population explosion

* 2021 : not as many

* 2022 : bounces back, these might be a problem. I bought green tape in 2021 but never wrapped my trees

* 2023 : rare sightings

There is a penn state study saying the fly may not be as damaging as expected.

https://old.reddit.com/r/philadelphia/comments/16it7q7/penn_...

Maybe birds are eating them or they kill all the bad trees. Life finds a way.

In Pittsburgh too. For some reason the back entrance to my building (TCS hall) is a mecca for these little pests--to the point that a brick wall was literally covered in thousands of them. I ninja-side-kicked said wall and hit nothing but lantern fly. I must have killed almost a hundred with just a couple kicks. Crazy.

Clearly natural selection is at work because the left over ones are getting pretty good at jumping out of the way of a stomp.

They may be getting better, but they're still pretty stupid. Also if you decide not to stomp one and instead pick it up by its wings, it just instantly gives up and stops moving. I got too tempted one time and ended up eating one.

What?!

Unexpected twist. Suspense of belief.

https://youtube.com/shorts/R-r3x8scCdI

Well, what did it taste like?

It tasted bad.

The railroad right of way that passes nearly under TCS is packed with the lanternflies favorite host species, ailanthus (tree of heaven). There's a large band of them running all the way from the river up panther hollow to Carnegie Mellon. It's a perfect breeding ground for the lanternflies.

(The gates building is covered in them too.)

I'm hoping the Tree of Heaven will be controlled. They've found a pathogen (Verticillium nonalfalfae) in Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Austria that seems highly effective at controlling it.

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/341196404_Field-ino...

https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s12600-022-01032-z

From experience, they only have enough energy for a jump or two, if you happen to miss them the first time. After that they’re spent.

Maybe a laser welding robot with some nice object recognition would be a great way to get rid of these.

Interesting. I usual try to sneak up on them from behind as they see / sense when I didn't.

They're quick but don't seem to have stamina. That is, first stomp might miss. Second stomp might sometimes misses as well. But by the third the battle is over. I win.

I’m near the airport and these things are everywhere at my house. My patio is covered in both LF and SB.

I’ve been killing then with my salt rifle (Amazon) and getting them with the shop vac.

These things are everywhere in Manhattan; a few weeks ago there were so many it took concerted effort not to step on one on the sidewalk. They don’t appear to be particularly intelligent either, and as such the ground is littered with their dead bodies, crushed underfoot by pedestrians. It’s gross.

It’s good to step on them.

I lived in Pennsylvania near the initial impact zone when these first arrived, in south Jersey a few years later, and moved to new York city about a year ago. The fly is now present in all 3 of these and was when I lived in those spots, but what's interesting is the amount that I see them has decreased every time I visit back to any of these places, particularly in southeast Pennsylvania where I used to see them all the time.

Anyone know why this would be the case? State eradication efforts were in full tilt for about a year or two in 2019 when I saw them all the time in PA, so I'm guessing it's some kind of combination of new predators emerging or the population becoming less dense as it spread out?

I live in a woodsy suburb in SE PA, and saw that first infestation. It was horrible. Disgusting. The next year was way better, and by this year (I can't remember if this is year 3 or 4) there were hardly any. There are definitely predators catching on--I've seen praying mantises and various spiders eating them. I think I've heard that some birds have caught on, too.

What I don't know is at first we heard that it's a little colder than they like around here, and that we should expect them to move south. I haven't heard that it's bad south of here, but I don't know.

I'm remembering the first year there all these red wings at the bottom of a tree near the local school. Then I saw the praying mantis on the tree.

Anyway, agreed there are far fewer of them in my suburban neighborhood now ... the forests (and most of the deer) are a few blocks away.

I don't think even the authorities know which of their efforts are most effective. Their numbers do seem to be declining in some places, which is heartening at least.

As far as I know, the authorities have done... nothing? I don't know that I would want them to do anything either, I suspect like stink bugs before them, they will enjoy a season or 2 of rapid population growth followed by a decreased population in subsequent years as they acclimate to their new environment.

First stinkbugs now this. I remember first seeing them in PA a decade ago. Now they are everywhere in Ohio. People joke it is the new state bird.

Of course it's spotted, how else would they know it's in Illinois?

I didn't realize my dad was on this board.

There are traps that you can buy or make for lanternflies.

They work absurdly well. It’s basically an upside down plastic bottle with a net funnel attached to the side of a tree.

For some reason lanternflies will only climb upwards. So they climb up the net into the bottle and then just stay in there trying to climb up and die.

For those taxonomists types the taxon in question is here, on a new type of taxon-page. The curators are waiting for official channels (e.g. GBIF, museums) to include vouchers prior to updating the distribution.

https://hoppers.speciesfile.org/otus/71398/overview

Shameless plug- Have H3 experience? We'd love to have open-source contributions to facilitate turning those geopolitical fenced maps into H3 format, see https://github.com/SpeciesFileGroup/taxonworks/issues/3581.

They are eating my willow tree, can someone please accidentally import a predator?

Their natural predator in China is a parasitic wasp which, if introduced, would likely decimate native insect populations. The government is considering it as a last resort, but as you can imagine it's not a pretty alternative.

For protecting specific trees, you can get sticky wraps that surround the trunk of the tree: https://www.farmanddairy.com/top-stories/how-to-install-stic... . A friend of mine has employed one to great effect.

Parasitic wasps are often highly specialized, so it's not clear to me it would decimate native insect populations.

This is true. Actually discovered my first oak gall this season and reading up on the specific wasp that can make an oak make an apple and then the specific wasp that puts parasites into the parasite and so forth. Anyways, fascinating.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oak_apple

Another step you can do is locating any egg husks on trees in your yard and scraping them off. At the very least it'll keep the nymphs from showing up on those next year.

Penn state ag department has some good resources on the fly

https://extension.psu.edu/how-to-remove-spotted-lanternfly-e...

If it's otherwise healthy, they won't kill it or even hurt it that badly. They loved the black walnut in our yard and I was worried about it, but by the next year they were mostly gone.

If you spot more you can post some pictures on inaturalist. There are 3 observations in Chicago at the moment. https://www.inaturalist.org/observations?place_id=35&subview...

Is that good or bad?

Read the very first sentence to find out!

You know the saying - if it breeds, it leads.

killing them, at least like this on a one off basis does nothing of value except reinforcing your deadly aggression. live and let live!

I mean, China's Four Pests campaign was pretty successful at killing native sparrows, maybe killing invasive would be successful at scale: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_Pests_campaign

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