Spotted Lanternflies Have Reached Belmont, Massachusetts, Where a Gardener Found Two on the Virginia Creeper in Her Own Back Garden - AOL

Belmont gardener Dorothy Gilman did not need a state survey to know the spotted lanternfly had arrived in her town. She found two of the insects on the Virginia creeper in her own back garden and killed them, she wrote in the Belmont Voice on Nov. 2, under a column headed “The Arrival of the Spotted Lanternfly.” The sap-feeding pest, first found in the United States in Pennsylvania in 2014, “has landed in Belmont,” Gilman wrote, adding that it is now definitely established in the area. Her find comes as Massachusetts officials say the insect is now confirmed in more than half the state’s cities and towns. Two on the Virginia creeper Gilman’s column describes a pest that is easy to miss until it moves. Adults are about an inch long and look gray-pink with black spots when their wings are folded. When the wings open, they show a red body underneath. A flash of red, Gilman notes, means the insect is getting ready to flee. Younger stages look different.

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