Pittsburgh-area residents can collect lanternflies for study of invasive species
Are you over the lanternfly invasion? Then would you be willing to collect a live one and place it in a jar? That’s what a Saint Vincent College professor would like you to do.
“I am not happy with these bugs at all,” said Velman Livingston.
Livingston walks around Highland Park. She’s seen her fair share of lanterns this summer.
Lanternflies arrived in Pennsylvania from Asia in 2014, an invasive species like a bad house guest overstaying their visit.
“It’s hard to get to them because they jump,” said Livingston.
They’re pesky, intrusive, resilient...and…”In some strange way, they’re kinda pretty,” said Livingston.
So now a Saint Vincent biology professor is signing people up to collect the bothersome bugs to study their DNA.
‘’This project, we are calling it the spotted lantern invasion archive,” said Assistant Professor of Biology at Saint Vincent College Dr. Michelle Duennes.
Researchers will mail out kits for participants to place the bugs in alcohol, so scientists can study what makes lanterns “tick” and thrive in this region.
“By preserving in alcohol, that helps preserve the DNA in the insect, but by keeping them, while it can help us study how their body might change over time,” said Duennes.
Meantime, experts say if you see one, step on it and kill it.
At Highland Park, we spotted women together for an outdoor workout that turned into a stomp out.
“I was driving down Forbes Avenue the other day and I saw someone doing...It’s like the lantern dance...Yup...” said Mary Renwick of Pittsburgh.
Or better yet, call it the spotted stomp.
For more information to take part in the spotted lantern invasion archive, go to https://maduennes.wordpress.com/spotted-lanternfly/.
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