I was in a local butterfly garden and there was a suspicious amount of dead spotted lantern flies just on the milkweed. I love that for them.

by f-difIknow

10 Comments

  1. Rebootrefresh

    Interesting. I’m seeing those little bastards all over mugwort and dog fennel lately though so there’s some natives that they like.

  2. Infamous_Koala_3737

    Wouldn’t it be awesome if planting more milkweed was the solution to the SLF problem?!

  3. Peregrine_Perp

    Interesting. Did you see any dead nymphs? The adults don’t eat, but I suppose it’s possible the toxin takes some time to kill them

  4. PossibilityOrganic12

    Hmm this is actually a hypothesis that got me into native plant gardening. I was researching natural ways to combat lantern flies that wouldn’t harm local wildlife since people had been putting tape on trees which would also catch local birds and pollinators. I read that ecologists had hoped that ignorant SLFs would eat the milkweed, and the toxic sap would kill them. But that research didn’t support this hypothesis. Who knows I guess the research is still ongoing!

  5. simplsurvival

    My dumb millennial ass read “Pacific south ass milkweed might kill self”

    Please laugh, it’s late and I’m tired

  6. TheCompleteMental

    More milkweed isnt a bad thing either way

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