Vineyards Facing An Insect Invasion May Turn To Aliens For Help
A stowaway from China, the spotted lanternfly, is eating its way across Pennsylvania, killing trees and grapevines. Scientists are considering importing the bug's natural enemies from back home.
Walking around a park near Allentown, Pa., I didn't even notice the bugs at first. Then Heather Leach arrived. She's an insect expert from Penn State University.
She pointed me toward the trees, and suddenly I realized they were everywhere: spotted lanternflies. An army of gray bugs, each one about an inch long, black spots on their wings, was climbing the trees' trunks. They marched slowly along branches. They were sucking the trees' sap, excreting some of it as sugary water that rained down on us in a gentle shower.
This is the latest great insect invasion to hit the United States.
"They kind of ugly, especially when there's thousands of them," Leach says. "Poke at
