Back in 2014, a student in Kansas found a bug he hadn’t seen before. He looked up its name and added it to his bug collection. When he presented it at the Kansas State Fair, something unexpected happened. The insect triggered a national investigation!
The bug was a spotted lanternfly. These insects originally come from China. In the U.S., spotted lanternflies are considered invasive. That means they cause harm in the environments they move into.
Spotted lanternflies were first seen in the U.S. earlier that year. Some of the plant-eating pests had been found in Pennsylvania. Finding one in Kansas meant that the lanternflies were spreading. A judge at the State Fair told authorities, who started a nationwide bug hunt.
Since then, spotted lanternfly numbers have grown. Now, there are many of them in Eastern states like Pennsylvania, Maryland, and New Jersey. “The genie’s out of the bottle,” says Michael Raupp. He studies invasive bugs at the University of Maryland.