Has anyone else in NJ noticed this about spotted lanternflies?

I want to get this out of the way at the top: this is nothing scientific. This is anecdotal and not based on any study I’ve seen. I just want to see if other people have made the same observation that I have.

So obviously the past few summers have been dominated by spotted lanternflies. They’re everywhere. It’s disgusting. Even their pretty wings don’t make up for the awful infestations we’ve been experiencing.

By now you know that we’re supposed to kill as many as possible if you see them, they're dangerous to our local plants. So naturally, that’s what I’ve been doing when I see them. For the most part, I’ve been successful (I’m not that coordinated).

That said, they’ve certainly made me work for it. I remembered from the past few years that the first time you go to kill them (in my case, by stomping on them), they’ll jump forward, so that hasn’t been surprising to me when they first started showing up this spring.

One thing I have noticed though is how this year they’ll not only jump, but they’ll fly away, which takes them much further than a little jump would.

Which brings me to my question… are they flying away more frequently than in previous years? Or am I going crazy? I never saw them fly away from me last year but now I'm seeing it constantly.

Here’s my (not so) graceful kill of one we had outside the office. It took three attempts and it traveled several feet before I was able to kill it.

This week a lanternfly landed on a friend’s windshield, when he went to attack it with his windshield wipers and wiper fluid (a solid attack in my book), the bug flew well over 10 feet away. This was far and away the furthest I’ve ever seen one go in one swoop.

Is anyone else seeing this?

It makes me think that they’re adapting to our standard ways of killing them and it’ll only make it more and more difficult for us to try to control the spread of the species in years to come. Logically, it makes sense from a survival standpoint, but it's crazy that it would happen so quickly from one year

So is it just me or have you noticed this as well? Let me know in our poll:

The post above reflects the thoughts and observations of New Jersey 101.5's Kylie Moore. Any opinions expressed are Kylie's own. You can follow Kylie on Instagram.

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