In honor of the 4th of July, I want to clear up the story behind my cover image—a spotted lantern fly absolutely overrun by ants.
This was one of those backyard discoveries that made me stop and think, “Should we be calling somebody?”
At the time, I couldn’t find anything online suggesting scientists had documented this behavior, which only made it feel even more bizarre.
Here’s what happened.
I found a dead adult spotted lantern fly on my patio step. Naturally, I poked it with a stick (as any respectable backyard nature detective would). The moment I did, what felt like hundreds of ants came pouring out from inside the lantern fly.
Not crawling on it.
Coming out of it.
That sent me right back to my earlier theory. Maybe I wasn’t so crazy after all. It looked like the ants were hollowing out the lantern fly from the inside, eating everything they could while leaving the outer shell largely intact. My earlier observation involved a younger lantern fly, but this one was a full-grown adult.
Nature continues to be completely unhinged.
And this isn’t even the wildest thing I’ve witnessed lately…
