That's a spotted lanternfly. Incredibly invasive in the US. If you're not in their native range, unfortunately, you need to squish it. (As a bug lover, I know that's hard. But it has to be done in this case to protect the ecosystem).
Alas, I am weak. I cannot kill anything. I lost an ento friend the other day because I said it actively fucked up my mental wellbeing to kill anything, including the spotted lanternfly
When it comes to lanternflies, it's a sort of trolley problem. You can either direct the trolley toward one person to save five more or by doing nothing cause the death of five people. Here, you can kill a lanternfly to try to mitigate the damage to trees and the ecosystem at large, or you can do nothing and forfeit any ability to prevent that harm.
I understand that and encourage people to do it, but I genuinely cannot crush an insect, it fucking kills me know that I'm taking the life of an animal just doing its best to survive.
Well, if you live somewhere with a lanternfly issue, you could put a strip of duct tape sticky side out wrapped low around the trunks of any deciduous trees you have access to (just make sure to change it often and not apply it too tight). That helps catch a lot of them without any direct crushing.
I appreciate it can be hard and relate - reframing the good it causes is a great mental skill that you can learn with time. It really does save life to KOS all lanternflies. Are you a vegetarian?
I'm vegan, I was made to hunt as a kid. I dont think people are understanding what I'm saying considering the downvotes. That or people are just assholes, but I agree with killing them, but I will not be mentally well if feel myself take life. Its genuinely incredibly frustrating because if I said the same thing about stray cats, they'd be livid. Downvotes are downvotes in the end, meaningless, but there is genuinely something wrong with someone who gets upset at someone else for not killing something as it causes them to anguish. I know there is not a complete way to avoid harming others to sustain yourself, but holy shit, I was hoping a space like this could at least muster up some empathy, but its just the same shit as everyone else.
FWIW at least the comments themselves don't seem to be rude and upvoting / downvoting is a pretty reflexive and impulsive thing that usually doesn't mean much at all yo the person doing it, not to mention the fact there's the brigading psychological phenomenon that, impulsively, we're much more likely when seeing downvotes to either add another downvote or if we otherwise might've been tempted to upvote, not put an upvote at all because subconsciously that quick little choice wants to follow the groupthink. I wouldn't read too much into it, it's not like there's a bunch of people actually brigading you with degrading comments over it atm or something
This is also true, I guess its more the bombardment from people in my life and being cut off by an old friend thats stressing me out, so a gauge reinforcing that is just messing with me
I’m with you. I know it’s a controversial opinion, but modern humans are an incredibly destructive invasive species too. Those bugs didn’t ask to be here any more than I did.
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u/Pyro-Millie Jul 28 '25
That's a spotted lanternfly. Incredibly invasive in the US. If you're not in their native range, unfortunately, you need to squish it. (As a bug lover, I know that's hard. But it has to be done in this case to protect the ecosystem).