Wednesday, March 21, 2018

Searching for SLF egg masses



Hello, everyone,

On Mar 20, we made a collecting trip to the known spotted lanternfly zone - a one square mile square around northern Winchester.  We found multiple egg masses - a photograph is attached.  There is also a photo of an idle rail car - there were egg masses on tree bark on both sides of the rail bed.  This is not the oviposition period, but it is easy to see how eggs laid on rail cars that are idle for hours or days would allow easy hitchhiking!  Observations in Pennsylvania indicate that SLF readily lays eggs on rough, rusty metal surfaces.

A reminder that we now have a reporting portal to report suspected SLF finds:
https://ext.vt.edu/spotted-lanternfly.

Our goal here is two-fold - to see if there are additional infested areas beyond the area we know, and also, to track the presence of SLF as it extends its range.  Please report an instances discovered!

Doug

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