Spotted Lanternfly Natural History Illustrations and Photographs

Summary: Spotted lanternfly natural history illustrations and photographs show pretty-winged pests that Chinese medicine and wasps seek against pain and as prey.

spotted lanternfly (Lycorma delicatula) specimen: Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture, Bugwood.org, CC BY 3.0 United States, via Insect Images

Spotted lanternfly natural history illustrations and photographs accentuate the aesthetic attractiveness of aggressive, alien antagonists of fruit-bearing and ornamental woody plants and of street bushes, shrubs, trees and vines outside Asian homelands.

Spotted lanternflies bear the common names Chinese blistering cicada and spot clothing wax cicada in English; ban-yi-la-chan, chu-ki, hong-liang-zi and hua-gu-liang in Chinese; ggot-mae-mi in Korean. The scientific name Lycorma delicatula communicates delicateness even though the lanthorn fly member of the Fulgoridae ("lightning") insect family clusters big-headed, large-winged, moth-like, plant-hopping pest-like characteristics. It derives from descriptions in 1945 by Adam White (April 29, 1817-Dec. 30, 1878), zoologist from Edinburgh, Scotland, at the Zoology Department of the British Museum.

Spotted lanternfly natural history illustrations and photographs exhibit Hemiptera ("half-winged") order members with base-hardened, black-spotted, brown-and-white, membrane-edged forewings and black-spotted, black, red and white membranous hindwings.

August through mid-November, mid-November through April and May through July function as respective breeding and egg-laying, overwintering and nymph emergence months in spotted lanternfly life cycles.

First through fourth nymphal instars of May, early and late June and early July and then mature spotted lanternflies of late July go for nutrient-rich sap. They harvest so much of the downward-flowing, sugar-filled phloem from young bark and stem vascular tissues that they heave large, liquid, sugary excesses out as honeydew. The sweet waste products inundate, and invite ants, bees, hornets, sooty mold fungi (Ascomycete spp) and wasps to, honeydew-inundated, sticky leaves and wounded branches and trunks.

Rough human-made and natural surfaces jeopardize spotted lanternfly eggs and hatchlings whose sustainability respectively juxtaposes sticky, waxy yellow-brown cases and climbing-friendly arolia (specialized tarsal adhesive pads).

Spotted lanternflies know 70-plus woody host plant species in China, India, Taiwan and Vietnam; Japan since the 1930s; Korea since 2004-2006; the United States since 2012-2014.

Smooth-barked trees lodge each mother-to-be's 30 to 50 brown, seed-like eggs in four to seven columns and then 3.6- to 4.4-millimeter (0.14- to 0.1-inch) first instars. Spotted lanternfly natural history illustrations and photographs move through 5.1- to 6.4-millimeter (0.20- to 0.25-inch) and 6.9- to 9.4-millimeter (0.27- to 0.3-inch) second and third instars. One-year life cycles need eggs; black-bodied, white-spotted first through third instars; black- and red-bodied, white-spotted, 10.9- to 14.8-millimeter (0.43- to 0.58-inch) fourth instars; and pretty-winged adults.

Spotted lanternfly natural history illustrations and photographs observe big-bodied, brown-headed, 21- to 22-millimeter (0.83 to 0.87-inch) males with black, 15- to 18-millimeter (0.59- to 0.71-inch) legs.

Adult females possess 24- to 27-millimeter (0.95- to 1.1-inch) bodies with red-ended, not male-specific black-ended, black-barred yellow abdomens and 18- to 22-millimeter (0.71- to 0.87-inch) legs.

Eggs, nymphs and adults queue up on alder, angelica, apple, apricot, bee-bee tree, birch, burdock, cedar, cherry, corktree, cottonwood, false-spiraea, grape, lilac, locust, maackia and magnolia. They likewise reside on mahogany, maple, mulberry, oak, parasol-tree, peach, plane, plum, poplar, quassia, rose, sumac, sycamore, tree-of-heaven, tulip-tree, Virginia creeper, walnut, willow, wingnut and zelkova. Spotted lanternfly nymphs and adults seek host trees with sugary sap or, to sabotage all predators but parasitic wasps, sickening toxins, such as their special tree-of-heaven.

Spotted lanternfly natural history illustrations and photographs track pretty pests whose overpopulation Chinese medicine and wasps thwart by turning spotted lanternflies respectively into anti-inflammants and prey.

spotted lanternfly feeding damage to tree-of-heaven (Ailanthus altissima (P. Mill (Swingle): Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture, Bugwood.org, CC BY 3.0 United States, via Forestry Images

Acknowledgment

My special thanks to talented artists and photographers/concerned organizations who make their fine images available on the internet.

Image credits:

spotted lanternfly (Lycorma delicatula) specimen: Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture, Bugwood.org, CC BY 3.0 United States, via Insect Images @ https://www.insectimages.org/browse/detail.cfm?imgnum=5524068

spotted lanternfly feeding damage to tree-of-heaven (Ailanthus altissima (P. Mill (Swingle): Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture, Bugwood.org, CC BY 3.0 United States, via Forestry Images @ https://www.forestryimages.org/browse/detail.cfm?imgnum=5522656

For further information:

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