Spotted lanternflies stink.
“They poop a lot. I know that's not a cute way of saying it, but they do. They poop a lot, and this honeydew deposition causes a lot of issues for people. It's sticky, it's gross. It creates sooty mold,” said Ashley Leach, an entomologist at Ohio State University who works on spotted lanternfly detection.
Spotted lanternflies are an invasive plant hopper that feed on a selection of plants in Michigan, including Tree of Heaven, grapevines and hops. They have expanded their range in southern Michigan this year. Early detection is important for preventing infestations, but the bugs can be hard to spot in low numbers.
Scientists and community members are working together on methods to track and find the lanternflies. From conservation dogs to paint rollers, the solutions to the buggy issue are creative and community-oriented.
Conservation dogs
“They are pretty stinky. The eggs and the teenagers all smell just about the same. So it's also a good source for community science. There's a lot of odor that's given off in pretty good volume. So dogs have a pretty good chance of finding them without much difficulty,” said Hannah Ashmore. She’s the lead educator and trainer for Longsnouts, a dog training organization that has a conservation focus. This includes nose work, or sniffing out specific things. Ashmore has trained her dog Kenna to hunt for spotted lanternflies.
The adult spotted lanternfly is light grey with polka dots and a Mothman glare. When it opens its wings, there's a bright pop of red. They're not a threat to humans. But lanternflies can devastate certain plants, including grapevines and hops.
Ashmore used a lanternfly “decoy” for cuing Kenna.
“[It’s an] old reusable Keurig pod that I found for 50 cents at [a] thrift store, that I have about a tablespoon of spotted lanternfly [in],” Ashmore explained. The lanternflies inside are dead, so there’s no risk of spreading them to other places. She hid the pod in a low crook of a small tree just off the path. Kenna wore a bell on her collar.
“Are you ready? Are you ready? Go shopping!”
Kenna, a brown leggy blur, took off down the trail, bell ringing. At first she bounced around looking like any dog suddenly off leash. But soon, her ping ponging took on a definite purpose.
“She has figured out that there is something exciting over there. She is doing what we call bracket, where she's bouncing back and forth to try and find the strongest source of the odor,” said Ashmore. Kenna was a very good girl and located the decoy. She booped it and ran back around to Ashmore, who was standing on the trail.
“Good girl. Nice work!” praised Ashmore.
“BORK!” said Kenna.
Ashmore and Kenna work with scientists and community members on programs to detect lanternflies. Longsnouts has classes where anyone can join with their dog to try out sniffing and sleuthing.
“I can honestly say in our community classes, our citizen science classes, all of the dogs pick it up. And they're a variety of flavors and ages,” said Ashmore. “Sure, the high-powered detection dogs are fantastic, but what about all those shelter dogs, right? …. Being mindful of matching dogs to personalities and skills to particular projects. Like, my dogs, the current ones, are really good at the big, off-leash, cover lots of area, tell you things.”
She explained that dogs are particularly good at early detection, before the bugs become easy to spot and before they create large, damaging infestations.
Environmental DNA
Originally from parts of Asia, the spotted lanternfly was first found in the U.S. in 2014 in Pennsylvania. It has been slowly moving mostly west and south since.
Ashley Leach said that the spread of the bug is particularly impressive when you consider that it's not a great flyer.
“Pretty telling to how this pest is moving, which is primarily through human-mediated means, and then it's kind of hopping off the transportation corridor, whether that's a railway, a car, a moving truck,” she said.
Lanternflies are good hitchhikers. Their flight skills tend to be more of a controlled fall than an upward lift.
Leach is working on advanced scientific strategies, including using environmental DNA, or eDNA, to search for early signs of the insects. Sequencing eDNA is a way to sort through all the microscopic debris in the world, like dust, dandruff, pollen. Little particles that have fallen off their source and tumble through the world now, detached and tiny.
Scientists like Leach are able to take samples of this and sequence them. Looking for needles in haystacks. In this case, bits of lanternfly. To collect the samples for one study, Leach and her team moistened paint rollers and rolled them over trees in Cleveland, Ohio. In this way, they can map out locations of lanternfly clues. In areas with infestations, they sometimes found more than 100 insects per tree.
The lanternflies invaded Ohio before they reached Michigan, so the early detection work there may help inform strategies here as well.
What you can do
Lanternflies have only been found in a handful of counties in southern Michigan. But it was just announced last month that they have expanded into yet another county, Berrien, in the southwestern corner of the state.
To help prevent the spread, always check your vehicle before driving long distances, across state lines, to make sure there aren’t any lanternflies attached. You can report spotted lanternfly sightings in Michigan here.
MSU Extension has a DIY “lampshade” trap you can make using easily accessible items from the hardware store. MSU has a number of other resources you can find here.
