On the hunt with New York’s spotted lanternfly squishers: ‘I came to kill’

Local officials have instructed residents to destroy the insects - and some New Yorkers are taking it very seriously

Michael Thomas, a maintenance worker, was inspecting the base of 3 World Trade Center in late June of last year when he started to notice groups of heart-shaped bugs, three or four at a time, crawling up on the walls" of the thousand-foot skyscraper in lower Manhattan. He went to sweep them up, hoping to keep them from entering through the revolving doors, or flying into the lobby. Then, he said, they just started to multiply".

What Thomas saw were spotted lanternflies, a visually arresting, fast-spreading invasive species - that New Yorkers are under strict instructions to kill. In the age of overlapping viral outbreaks (Covid, monkeypox, the return, in some places, of polio), this kind of clear government communication is a gift. The New York state department of agriculture is very direct: If you see a Spotted Lanternfly in New York City, kill it immediately by stepping on it or crushing it."