r/awwnverts • u/IllegalGeriatricVore • 3d ago
I hate that these guys are invasive
There's so many outside my work.
Sometimes when I'm sitting out there they just crawl up on my knee and they're kinda cute Like they just say hi and will crawl on my hand. I don't feel like me killing a few is going to fix the problem, so I don't.
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u/rrtaylor 3d ago
If it helps, it looks like the fear of them is *waaaay* overblown. They've done studies and it looks like they do minimal damage to healthy trees. Also, one of their preferred foods is the invasive tree of heaven so it may be a wash *and* when they try to eat milkweed it kills them.
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u/reddit33450 i adore invertebrates 3d ago
exactly. and it upsets me so much when people act as if they are "evil" or being intentionally malicious. they are just existing exactly as they would anywhere else. it is the fault of HUMANS that they are in ecosystems where they dont belong. these buges did nothing wrong
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u/IllegalGeriatricVore 3d ago
One just came up and touched my finger and when I looked up from my phone he slunk away like a shy little guy that made a mistake 😭
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u/acaron2020 3d ago
Also must be mentioned that SLF’s have been able to establish and spread so successfully in North America because humans previously introduced their preferred host, Ailanthus altissima.
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u/IllegalGeriatricVore 3d ago
They're taking over the northeast and very little is done about it. They line the highways. The dogpark we go to is surrounded. So many yards being overtaken
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u/nonosejoe 3d ago
Im in PA where it all started. It was very bad for years. Literally scooping them up with snow shovels in some places. Now I only see them every so often. Once the local praying mantis community learned to eat them we had tons of praying mantis everywhere for a few years which was really cool.
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u/reddit33450 i adore invertebrates 3d ago
yeah. invasiveness aside i find the tree of heaven truly beautiful. i also love the pungent aroma of their leaves
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u/Pixelpaint_Pashkow 3d ago
yea, its true, unfortunately as they are our fault and they are causing harm its only right for us to do something about it
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u/CeriPie 3d ago
What gets me is that mercilessly killing a handful of them because they are invasive isn't going to change anything. Everyone in the state could kill a hundred of them and there would still be thousands. There isn't anything we as individuals can do about it, so why kill them just for existing? Just for the sake of cruelty?
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u/reddit33450 i adore invertebrates 3d ago
lots of sadistic people seem to use the fact that a species is invasive as an excuse to torture it because they think its more socially acceptable
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u/Msmfan69 3d ago
yes omg same i hate people who say that. jst sounds like people, i wouldnt say revealing true colors because thats pushing it, but showing their actual look on nature when it isnt pretty or viewed as admirable because them being invasive (and hard to empathize with since theyre arthropods) gives them an excuse to do so
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u/reddit33450 i adore invertebrates 3d ago
definitely. i hate people. and funnily enough i empathize with invertebrates and reptiles way more than other animals
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u/Efficient_Matter_589 3d ago
I agree, I hate killing any living creature in general, invasive or not.
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u/mothspiderr 3d ago
right, they would be so gorgeous if they were like a rare planthopper. but now they seem boring and tainted :(
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u/IllegalGeriatricVore 3d ago
They don't mean to be bad
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u/mothspiderr 3d ago
i know… i feel bad killing them bc they don’t know what they’re doing. they’re just trying to eat
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u/Solecis 3d ago
Well yeah, people killing them manually won't do anything meaningful. I find it very weird how excited some people are about killing them tbh. It doesn't make you some hero to squish some bugs.
Better to plant gardens that nourish and nurture animals, so predator species (like parasitoid wasps) have places to live and hunt bugs like this. Or you can destroy the eggs, dealing with larger numbers at once while not causing suffering to a developed insect.
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u/Oddly-Ordinary 3d ago
People are literally killing them for fun and convincing themselves it’s “environmentalism” and “activism” it’s disgusting.
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u/The_Cascoon 3d ago
I'm of the opinion (And perhaps it's unreasonable) that killing them really doesn't solve anything. Even if everyone on the east coast killed like five a day, it still probably wouldn't make a noticeable dent in their population. I can understand it if they're in your garden or something and you want to protect your plants, though.
As well, the ecosystem seems to be adapting to them over time. The same thing happened with those grey stinkbugs a couple years back. No one really talks about those anymore. I assume that, with time, the same will happen to the lanternflies. I don't really know though, I'm no ecologist.
So hey, maybe by the next generation people will just think of them as the funny big planthoppers and move on.
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u/IllegalGeriatricVore 3d ago
At the very least stomping on them isn't fixing the problem.
Anyone with a roach infestation knows you can't stomp your way to being roach free. You need a systemic approach.
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u/Unsolicited_Spiders 3d ago
They are beautiful. I have a specimen that I spread for a collection. Truly stunning flash colors.
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u/wholelottachoppaz 3d ago
i feel the same way. i think these guys are so beautiful, and so cute. and goofy as hell as i’m sure you’ve figured out :p they were hanging around my work summer 2023 i was very amused getting to know them during my vape breaks!
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u/LaundryMan2008 3d ago
If I was in the US, I would give mullein a pass for being such a cute fluffy plant, thankfully I’m in the UK but it’s so hard to find that I’ve had to resort to uprooting one of them to have as a houseplant, when it seeds, I will be planting those seeds first at the shared fruit foraging field for easy access and then the next generation of seeds will be planted absolutely everywhere they can go so they won’t be in such a shortage
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u/Jefffahfffah 3d ago
I brought my buddy from Florida up to New Jersey for a weekend and he was bewildered at the widespread desire to kill these things. He started counting how many he could get.
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u/SirJohn-redditor 3d ago
I have been cruel, on days when I am at my happiest crushing them feels like being evil, it's not their fault... I remember when I first found them when I was 16, they were the coolest, I had never seen a bug quite like them before, they were so neat
I wish I didn't have to kill them, I wish they weren't bad for the environment.
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u/gachagirl648 3d ago
Literally happened to my gf and I today. We left the store and saw one and she went "aww!! Wait. Invasive?" and I went "yeah :(" he was promptly mushed
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u/maggotroni 3d ago
Some good news on these guys, ive heard other animals like birds have started seeing them as a food source, so theyre slowly becoming integrated into the natural food chain :> hopefully this continues, bc i agree, theyre very pretty bugs and its a shame to have to kill them just bc they exist in the wrong place </3