PITTSBURGH — On a muggy afternoon on Pittsburgh's North Shore, it felt good to step into the shade beneath a leafy tree. The smell was sweet and a sound suggesting rain was made by the patter of white sticky droplets falling on and around me.
On closer inspection I noticed the thin tree trunk was covered with hundreds of bugs, so dense their black and white wings overlapped, and I realized the sticky sweet drops were coming from the bugs. I was standing in an insect infestation and the "rain" dripping on my head and shoulders was spotted lanternfly poop.
Beyond the ick factor, Lycorma delicatula is a persistent alien invader from China and Vietnam first seen in Pennsylvania near the Philadelphia shipping docks in 2014. The bug doesn't bite, sting, carry human disease or harm people — the psychological effects of defecation inundation notwithstanding.
