The latest invasive bug imported from China has already spread to 17 eastern states and appears likely to reach the West Coast as it searches for wine vines and other plants and trees to suck dry and destroy.

Following the path cut by the Brown Marmorated Stink Bug that arrived from China in 1998, the spotted lanternfly first found in Pennsylvania in 2014 has already made its way to Illinois and Tennessee and is likely headed to California and the Pacific Northwest.

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“They’re still spreading,” said Tracy Leskey, the research leader and entomologist for the Department of Agriculture’s Agricultural Research Service in West Virginia.

“It is definitely on the radar for bio surveillance,” she told Secrets.

Leskey is well known to our readers for her years of explaining the threat of, and eventual victory over, the stink bug.

Just like that pest native to Asian nations, Leskey said that the spotted lanternfly arrived on a shipment from China to Pennsylvania. Officials believe the eggs of the beautiful fly were on a shipment of decorative stone sent to Reading, Pa.

And just like the stink bug, it has spread fast and in big numbers throughout the agricultural east.

While stink bugs feed on fruits such as peaches, apples, and grapes, the spotted lanternfly feeds on sap, so it is a far more dangerous pest to plants and trees.

“Both have piercing, sucking mouth parts. But the difference between brown marmorated stink bug and lanternflies, is that lanternflies are feeding directly on the plant sap, so the phloem. They’re not feeding on the fruit,” said Leskey.

It prefers the weedy Tree of Heaven plant and will even attack poison ivy, but it also has a taste for grape vines and can cause massive damage at wineries.

“That’s a problem,” said Leskey, part of a team that includes Virginia Tech, Penn State, Rutgers and several other agricultural research institutions.

To test for potential damage from the bug, Leskey’s team planted a vineyard, and the lanternflies followed.

“We have already seen, after a single year, significant declines in yield on those grapes where the lanternfly was feeding. So we now know that you do have to manage them because they are going to reduce the yield. The other problem is that, because they’re feeding so late [in the fall], they’re taking away some of the nutrients that help the plant move through winter and deal with cold temperatures. We’re seeing the vines just aren’t as healthy the following spring,” she said.

“It looks like we’re seeing some vines that may not make it, and also they’re just less healthy because you can imagine it’s just like a little vampire sucking on you. You know, over time, it’s going to take away a lot of resources, and it stresses the plant,” Leskey added.

The nymphs are emerging from the muddy sacks of eggs laid on plant and tree bark last year by the highly colored adult lanternfly. The nymphs look like large black ticks decorated with white spots. Those will transform into the large fly from July to September.

In Virginia’s Loudoun County, home to several wineries, grape growers have been on the lookout for the egg masses and this year held events to scrape them from vines.

The Scrape for the Grape campaign, created by Visit Loudoun, in partnership with the Loudoun Invasive Removal Alliance, Loudoun County Virginia Cooperative Extension, and the Loudoun Wineries & Winegrowers Association, this spring attracted enough volunteers to scrape an estimated 9 million eggs off the vines.

“This is still just a drop in the bucket, but the campaign is a powerful reminder that when we work together, we can protect the places we love — Loudoun’s wineries,” said Visit Loudoun President and CEO Beth Erickson. 

Scraping is good, but all eyes are on Leskey and her partners for a solution. Spraying and netting can help, she said, but more needs to be done.

She helped study and confirm the best way to kill stink bugs with a tiny wasp also from Asia that destroyed stink bug eggs by laying its eggs in them.

To rid the lanternfly, the StopSLF.org team is looking to eradicate the bug’s favored Tree of Heaven by hitting it with a killer disease and then hoping that the fly spreads it around to other plants.

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“The question is, can you kill Tree of Heaven, can you reduce lanternfly populations, and also, if the tree is infected with this plant disease, can lanternflies move it to other Tree of Heaven and contribute to their own demise?” asked Leskey.

That, she said, “would be very satisfying.”