Spotted Lanternflies Change Color with Age (IMAGE)

Laboratory of Behavioral Ecology and Evolution at Seoul National University

Spotted Lanternflies Change Color with Age

Caption

When young lanternflies (nymphs) change their color from mostly black (A) to mostly red (B), they also switch from feeding on juices from a variety of plants to feeding on juices of only one species, the tree of heaven, from which they obtain bitter chemicals and store them in their bodies. Insectivorous birds to not like bitter tasting lanternflies.

Credit

A and B are parts of two photos by by Rkillcrazy published at Wikipedia and covered by Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International license. Original photos at: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Spotted_Lanternfly_Berks_County_PA_Late_July_2018.jpg; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spotted_lanternfly#/media/File:Young_Spotted_Lanternflies_on_Fox_Grapes_in_Berks_County,_Pennsylvania.jpg

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