Spotted Lanternfly
Lycorma delicatula
Spotted Lanternfly · Brooklyn Botanic Garden · 21 July 2024
A Spotted Lanternfly on a leaf in the Botanic Garden, a planthopper from China that arrived in Pennsylvania in 2014 and has since spread through the Northeast. In New York it lives wherever tree of heaven grows, which is every vacant lot and railway cutting in the city.
Not a fly at all. The hindwings' red and black are a flash warning, kept hidden under the spotted grey forewings until the insect is disturbed into showing them. Its favourite host is tree of heaven, another Chinese import, which is why the two are so often found together on a city street.
Birds, insects, plants and other wildlife, mostly from Brooklyn, with some from further afield.
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