May We Have See Ourselves As Lanternflies Do
Have you ever heard of spotted lanternflies? If you live in the North East region of the United States, you’ve probably at least seen a news story about them. They are invasive insects with very distinct red and gray wings. They consume sap from maple, fruit trees, and grape, which is a major concern for orchards and vineyards. So, the recommendation is to kill them on sight.
You’ll Get Used to It
For me, the first time I saw one was at Hershey Park in Pennsylvania. The place was absolutely teeming with them. As I stood in line for a ride, one even hopped onto the back of my leg. When I knocked it off of me, a little girl told me to step on it and squish it. Even though I could tell having this many lanternflies caused a lot of problems, I still couldn’t bring myself do it. The little blonde girl stomped on it in one quick motion and told me, “You’ll get used to it.”
By next spring, I really had to get used to it. They were in my own neighborhood by the thousands. At first, I didn’t know what they were. They just looked like little black beetles with white polka dots. But remembering the scene from Pennsylvania, I googled the lanternfly’s life cycle. My instinct was right. They were young spotted lanternflies in a stage called “instar”. At this point, they have no wings and just hop around like fleas. They have this natural instinct to climb trees, so I learned to slap them with a shoe as they made their way upward.
Somewhere around July, the instars turn red, looking like overgrown ladybugs. By then, I had become an expert stepper. I learned the best direction to step on them was squarely from the front, face to face with the target. Otherwise, they could hop away, and you’d never know where they went.
Questions, Questions
On this day, I was at a large park with lots of trees. My oldest son was training with his high school track team, and the younger two were cooing to the turtles in the pond until he was done. Just behind them, I was battling what seemed to be an endless line of lanternflies. And at the same time, I was battling myself, wondering if what I was doing was really right.
I knew that the lanternflies are considered pests. I had personally seen the maple tree in front of my house spew sap because of all the holes the lanternflies made. With no natural predators in the area, it was clear that they would be an even bigger problem next year if not controlled. Yet, these were insect equivalent of teenagers like my son, and they had no say in which part of the world they were born into. It’s the humans who had accidentally brought their family from a far away land. In it’s native habitat, I might have looked at them as if they were beautiful moths, or as lucky as seeing a ladybug.
From the perspective of Mother Earth, which species would appear most like a pest on this planet? With all the environmental destructions we’re causing, wouldn’t it be human beings? If aliens suddenly came and decided to get rid of the “pests” of the planet, did I have the right to plead for my children’s lives? Would I even get a chance to plead, or would they just kill us on sight, just as I was doing with these lanternflies? As these are hypothetical questions, they didn’t have clear answers. As the summer went on an they turned into adults, I kept on stepping on the lanternflies, apologizing to them as I did so. Steeped in guilt, I hoped that each time I killed one, it was helping the local trees and wildlife.
Mother Nature’s Answer
One day in May the next spring, their eggs hatched. I saw swarms of instars climbing up the maple tree in front of my house. My heart sunk. I felt scared for the tree. But Mother Nature had an interesting trick up her sleeve. Two days later, it poured. It rained all day and all night. And the next morning, they were all gone, washed away thanks to the spring storm. That year, and the years since then, I did see lanternflies, but never at the rate that I saw that first year. Thanks to that perfectly-timed rain and the local wildlife learning to integrate them into their diet, lanternflies are under control in our area. In a surprising way, Mother Nature showed me that as brutal as it seems, death is part of life. And death is woven into her method of taking care of herself.