You walk out onto your patio expecting a peaceful garden, only to find your car coated in a sticky film and your trees suffocating under black mold. A vibrant, red-winged bug watches you from a branch. This is the Spotted Lanternfly, and if you spot this flashy intruder, you are looking at an ecological catastrophe in the making.

This menace destroys plants by secreting a sugary waste called “honeydew” that rains down on your property. This repulsive sludge attracts sooty mold, a dark fungus that blocks sunlight from reaching leaves. Within weeks, healthy trees and grapevines weaken, stop producing fruit, and eventually die from the slow, agonizing damage.

To stop the invasion, you must recognize the pest’s different stages. In spring, they are tiny black nymphs with white spots, turning red with black and white patches by mid-summer. As adults in late summer, they grow an inch long with gray, spotted wings that flash a brilliant red when they fly or jump.

You can fight back by firmly stepping on the bugs or scraping their grayish, mud-like egg masses off trees and furniture into rubbing alcohol. It is also helpful to remove their favorite host plant, the invasive “Tree of Heaven,” or use carefully shielded sticky traps. Reporting sightings to your local Department of Agriculture is crucial to saving your backyard and local agriculture.