STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- Are our pesky spotted lanternflies getting lost?
As the invasive insects continue to swarm the tristate area, more and more have been spotted near high-rise office buildings blocks away from the lush trees of suburbia.
Last month, scores of the colorful bugs were seen around a 12-story apartment building in Jersey City, N.J., according to video shot by a resident.
“They look like they crash into the glass on the upper floors and fall to the sidewalk,” Marc Wesson wrote in a post on his Instagram page on Aug. 4.
“They seem to be drawn to glass high rises, and get stunned by hitting the glass and fall to the sidewalk,” he said. “There are multiple new buildings downtown that are seeing the same mass gathering of the lanternfly.”
Although research is still being done to determine why spotted lanternflies are attracted to high-rise buildings, experts have some theories.
Amy Korman, an entomologist for the Penn State Extension in Lehigh and Northampton counties in Pennsylvania, said spotted lanternflies might be confusing man-made structures for nature’s trees.
“Trees are tall,” she said. “In the spotted lanternfly’s head, they’re going to be attracted to big things. They don’t know the difference. If it’s tall, that maybe translates into food for them.”
Korman said spotted lanternflies aren’t too good at flying, so they may be using tall buildings as launching pads to help them move closer to the trees and plants they need to survive.
“When they crawl up the sides of buildings, they use that to launch into the air currents, and that moves them around,” she said.
Brian Eshenaur, a bug expert at the New York State Integrated Pest Management Program at Cornell University, agreed.
“In our urban environment it’s possible they may be confusing tall buildings for very large trees,” he said. “Sometimes dead spotted lanternflies can be found at the bases of tall buildings. This is likely due to the fact that they can only survive for about two days without feeding on a plant.”
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