← All pests
Spotted Lanternfly

Spotted Lanternfly

Lycorma delicatula

Insectalso: SLF

An invasive, planthopper-like insect first found in Pennsylvania in 2014 and now spreading across the eastern states. It feeds on sap from many plants, with a special appetite for grapevines, hops, fruit trees, and the weedy tree-of-heaven. It rarely kills garden plants outright, but its feeding stresses them and its sticky waste fouls everything below.

🔎 How to spot it

Adults are about an inch long with showy gray forewings dotted black and bright red underwings flashed in flight, and they are most visible in late summer and fall. The young nymphs are black with white spots, becoming red and black as they mature. Watch also for the inch-long, gray, mud-like egg masses smeared on trunks, stones, furniture, and vehicles, and for sticky honeydew and black sooty mold coating leaves and surfaces under infested plants.

🥀 Damage it causes

Spotted lanternflies pierce stems and trunks to suck sap, weakening and stressing plants and, on grapevines, reducing yield, lowering vine sugars and root reserves, and sometimes killing the vine. They excrete large amounts of sticky honeydew that grows black sooty mold over leaves, fruit, decks, and cars, and the swarming adults are a serious nuisance. They are not known to directly kill most trees and garden plants.

🛡️ Prevent it

Learn to recognize all life stages and scrape egg masses into a bag with hand sanitizer or alcohol from fall through spring to cut the next generation. Remove nearby tree-of-heaven, its favored host, where practical. Inspect anything stored outdoors, vehicles, firewood, and plants before moving them, since people accidentally spread the egg masses, and follow any local quarantine or reporting guidance.

🧯 If it is already here

Kill nymphs and adults you find by squashing them, and continue destroying egg masses through the dormant season. A circle trap, a screen funnel banded around the trunk, can capture nymphs climbing trees; avoid sticky bands, which also catch birds and beneficial insects. Report new sightings to your state agriculture department, especially in newly invaded areas, since early detection helps slow the spread.

💡 Good to know

Do not panic: despite the alarm, spotted lanternfly is mainly a grape, tree, and nuisance pest rather than a killer of vegetable gardens. There is one generation a year. Because it hitchhikes as egg masses on anything left outdoors, the single most useful thing a gardener can do is check for and destroy egg masses and report new finds.

🌱 Plants it attacks

77 plants in the library can be attacked by this pest

American BasswoodAnjou PearAroniaAsian PearAunt Molly's Ground CherryBalsam PoplarBartlett PearBeach PlumBing CherryBlack Tartarian CherryBlack WalnutBosc PearBraeburn AppleCatawba GrapeChampagne LoquatChokecherryClimbing Prairie RoseConcord GrapeContender PeachCoral Drift Groundcover RoseCornelian CherryCortland AppleCosmic Crisp AppleDamson PlumElberta PeachEnglish WalnutFantasia NectarineFlowering DogwoodFuji AppleGala AppleGraham Thomas English RoseGranny Smith AppleHansa Rugosa RoseHawthornHoney LocustHoneycrisp AppleHopsIceberg Floribunda RoseIndian HawthornKnock Out RoseMcIntosh AppleMethley PlumMiss Kim LilacMister Lincoln Hybrid Tea RoseMontmorency CherryMoorpark ApricotMoss RoseMuscadine GrapeNanking CherryNew Dawn Climbing RoseNiagara GrapeOregon GrapePaper BirchPeace Hybrid Tea RosePink Lady ApplePrickly PearQuaking AspenQueen Elizabeth Grandiflora RoseQuinceRainier CherryRed AlderRed Delicious AppleRedhaven PeachRegent SaskatoonRoyal Heritage Lenten RoseSarah Bernhardt PeonySassafrasSlippery ElmStanley PlumSugar AppleSugar MapleSweet Chariot Miniature RoseTexas Scarlet Flowering QuinceThompson Seedless GrapeWhite AshWhite WillowWitch Hazel

For educational and informational purposes only. Pest control advice is general guidance drawn from university cooperative extension sources; always identify a pest positively and read and follow the label on any product before use, especially around food crops, children, and pets.