COVINGTON, Ky. — An invasive plant-hopping insect has been spotted in parts of Covington. The city urban forester says it could cause some trouble if not taken care of, so he’s advising people: see it, squash it.
A few times in Devou Park and once in downtown Covington, spotted lanternflies have made appearances. Covington Urban Forester Patrick Moore said those appearances are not welcome.
“It’s something that urban foresters are really concerned about, because of the potential impacts it could have,” Moore said. “We’ve got a lot of older street trees that are surviving and doing the best they can. And this could just be that one extra little stressor that kind of tips them over the edge.”
While these pests originate from Pennsylvania, Moore said the ones found in Covington probably came over from established populations in Cincinnati.
Their main host is the tree of heaven, which is also considered an invasive species. The lanternflies will hop to other trees, sucking sap. They also like grapes and hops, which can hurt local beer and wine industry.
“I’d say they’re around an inch in size,” Moore said. “The adults will go and they suck on the tree, they take that sap, and that’s where they get their energy from.”
From there, they’ll lay eggs. Moore said the egg masses can look like a mud splatter. Those will turn into nymphs and eventually adults.
“How do we identify those emerging egg masses, identify the populations, and try to quarantine those?” Moore said. “At this point, we don’t have any established populations that I know of. But yeah, if we have some established populations, and we get to the point of having some pretty significant infestations, like I’ve heard in towns in Pennsylvania, we have just this kind of mass of insects, dead bodies on the ground. There’s just a lot of dead spotted lanternflies on the ground.”
He added, “The volume gets very intense. So it’s very similar to the cicada brood type level.”
One course of action is getting rid of trees of heaven. The other is more simple.
“I definitely recommend if you can, kill it, squash it, collect it, positively id it for right now in our region, northern Kentucky, so that we can identify where it came from and try to go from there,” Moore said.
Even if people don’t see the spotted lanternfly’s striking pattern, there are other signs they could be nearby.
Moore said if someone parks their car under a tree, comes back, and it looks like it rained, but the substance is sticky, it could be honeydew, which is lanternfly excrement. That can also lead to black mold on plants.
Bugs should be captured if possible, photographed (and then killed), and reported to the Kenton County Cooperative Extension office by calling (859) 356-3155 or emailing Brandon George or Mary Ann Schultz.