• Again •
[1½ MIN READ]
Wandering around the neighborhood in mid-July, I witnessed Growler Adelaide planting her foot firmly on a spotted lanternfly nymph, thereby drawing its brief life to an abrupt end. We’ve all had it in us to do the same since they started populating our Jenkintown and environs in 2020. Have you noticed that they haven’t been nearly as bad every year since then? That seems to be multiple people’s observations, including mine. And I’m pretty sure it had nothing to do with COVID-19.
Back then, though, we were all pretty concerned about both the lantern bug and the coronavirus bug. With so much uncertainty about the then future, it seemed to make sense to be aggressive about reacting to both. I will not be the judge of what was overreacting, though; except for this one particular instance—to SLF, though, not C19.
In 2020 you could expect to see 6-12” of adhesive on the barks of many trees by early August. By September, though, the vulnerable nymphs were flying adults who themselves weren’t much getting stuck. Running around the neighborhood solo in October that year, though, I had to stare at this scene of extravagant and belated xenophobia.
Well, it wasn’t my many dimes that paid for all that tape. And really, who’s to say the effort wasn’t the definitive cause of the otherwise unexpectedly mild appearances in the years since then? I couldn’t.
It turns out that recent research says they’re not as harmful as originally thought. That hasn’t been true for every bug.
-CtCloser (Calvinthe), “Negative split or positive splat” #dothedue
FINE PRINT
¶Text and photos (unless otherwise stated): Calvin Wang (Wäng), CC BY-NC-SA 4.0. ¶Cross-posted: (1) Facebook JRC Growlers Group Run (2023’07’19’W Run Message), (2) GGR email list, (3) Cerebruns by CtCloser. ¶This website posting: Cerebrun with added caption and image.
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