Do Birds Eat Lanternflies? And Which Species Help?

Multiple bird species in North America do eat spotted lanternflies, and a growing body of research is documenting which ones. A large community science study found that birds were the second most commonly reported group of lanternfly predators after arthropods like spiders, with game birds in the pheasant family topping the list of avian predators.¹ But the relationship between birds and lanternflies is more complicated than a simple predator-prey story, because the lanternfly has a chemical trick that makes many birds think twice before eating it.

Which Birds Have Been Documented Eating Lanternflies

The most systematic look at lanternfly predators so far came from a community science project that collected public reports of animals feeding on spotted lanternflies through social media. Among birds, the family Phasianidae, which includes chickens and other game birds, was the most frequently reported. That makes some intuitive sense: chickens are ground-foraging omnivores that will snap up just about any insect in their path, and backyard chicken owners across the mid-Atlantic have reported their flocks enthusiastically gobbling up lanternflies.¹

Beyond chickens, several wild species have been caught in the act. House wrens have been studied in detail because they are cavity nesters whose diet can be closely monitored through nest boxes. In controlled experiments, house wrens readily consumed lanternfly nymphs at every stage of development, eating up to 90% of the early nymphs offered to them under certain conditions.² Woodpeckers have also been tested. In a suet-based feeding study, several woodpecker species ate suet containing ground lanternfly material, showing they will consume the insects at least in processed form. Non-woodpecker species ate the lanternfly suet as well.²

Anecdotal reports from the broader birding community extend the list further. Blue jays, gray catbirds, and various songbirds have been observed picking off lanternflies from tree trunks and leaves, though formal controlled studies on those species are still limited. The general picture is that quite a few birds will eat lanternflies when given the opportunity. Whether they eat enough to matter is a different question.

The Tree of Heaven Problem

Spotted lanternflies have a strong preference for the tree of heaven (Ailanthus altissima), an invasive tree from the same part of Asia where the lanternfly originated. This relationship is not just about food. It is about chemical warfare. As lanternflies feed on Ailanthus, they absorb bitter compounds called quassinoids, particularly one called ailanthone, and store them in their bodies. This was the first documented case of any insect sequestering quassinoid chemicals from plants in the Simaroubaceae family.³

Those stored chemicals make the lanternflies taste terrible to birds. When researchers offered birds seeds infused with ailanthone, the birds avoided them, confirming that the chemical itself is a deterrent.³ This means that in areas where lanternflies are feeding heavily on tree of heaven, the bugs effectively become less appetizing. They are still edible. Birds do not drop dead from eating them. But the bitter taste discourages repeated feeding, which is exactly what a chemical defense is supposed to do.

The practical implication for anyone hoping birds will clean up their lanternfly infestation is this: lanternflies in areas thick with tree of heaven are chemically better defended and less likely to be consumed. Lanternflies that have been feeding on other host plants, such as grapevines, maples, or fruit trees, have lower levels of these defensive chemicals and are more palatable to birds.

How Diet Changes What Birds Are Willing To Eat

Researchers tested this directly by raising lanternfly nymphs on two diets: one group with access to Ailanthus and one without. They then offered both groups to nesting house wrens. The results were consistent across every nymphal stage. House wrens ate significantly more of the lanternflies raised without Ailanthus access. For the youngest nymphs, wrens consumed about 90% of the non-Ailanthus insects but only about 60% of those raised on Ailanthus. For mid-stage nymphs, the gap narrowed somewhat but remained meaningful, with roughly 60% consumed from the non-Ailanthus group versus about 43% from the Ailanthus group.²

The suet study added another layer. When lanternflies were ground into suet cakes and offered to a variety of backyard birds, the suet made from non-Ailanthus-fed lanternflies was pecked at more frequently across the board. Woodpeckers averaged roughly 20 pecks per visit at the non-Ailanthus suet versus about 17 for the Ailanthus version. Smaller birds showed an even larger relative difference, averaging about 5 pecks per visit for non-Ailanthus suet and closer to 4 for the Ailanthus variety.²

Two things are worth noting here. First, even the Ailanthus-fed lanternflies were not completely rejected. Birds still ate them at lower rates. So the chemical defense reduces predation rather than eliminating it entirely. Second, the difference was most dramatic in the earliest and latest nymphal stages, and somewhat smaller in between. The takeaway for homeowners is straightforward: lanternflies feeding on your grape arbor or ornamental trees, rather than on a nearby tree of heaven, are more likely to attract bird predation.

Warning Colors and Life Stages

Spotted lanternflies go through four nymphal stages before becoming adults, and they change color dramatically along the way. The early instars are small and mostly black with white spots, blending into bark and stems fairly well. By the fourth instar, they shift to a striking red and black pattern. This transition from camouflage to bright warning colors is classic aposematic signaling, the same general strategy used by monarch butterflies and poison frogs.⁴

The timing of this color change lines up with the dietary shift. As nymphs mature, they increasingly feed on Ailanthus and accumulate more defensive chemicals. The bright red coloring of fourth instars essentially advertises that they taste bad. It’s a built-in billboard telling birds to move on.³ Adult lanternflies keep this up with their vivid red hind wings, which they flash when threatened or in flight.

For birds that learn by experience, this system works. A young bird that tries eating a foul-tasting red lanternfly nymph quickly associates the color with the unpleasant experience and avoids similar-looking insects in the future. This means that in heavily infested areas where lanternflies are feeding on Ailanthus, birds may learn to leave them alone entirely. But in areas where the lanternflies are feeding on other host plants and therefore carry fewer defensive chemicals, the warning colors may be somewhat of a bluff, and birds that sample them might keep coming back.

Are Spiders and Other Predators More Effective Than Birds

The community science data found that arthropods, not birds, were the most commonly reported predators of spotted lanternflies. Among arthropods, spiders (order Araneae) generated the most reports.¹ Web-building spiders have an advantage here because they do not rely on visual assessment of prey. A lanternfly blundering into a web gets wrapped and consumed regardless of what chemicals it has stored or what color it is. Praying mantises have also been observed eating lanternflies, and various predatory wasps and beetles round out the picture.

That said, the volume of reports does not necessarily translate into the volume of lanternflies consumed. A single chicken patrolling a backyard can eat far more individual insects in a day than a spider can. The data tell us who is eating lanternflies, not how many they remove from the population. This distinction matters for anyone hoping to find a silver-bullet natural predator. No single species, bird or otherwise, appears to be making a significant dent in lanternfly populations across the landscape.

Why Birds Alone Cannot Solve the Lanternfly Problem

It would be satisfying to report that a particular bird species has risen to the occasion and is keeping lanternfly numbers in check. That has not happened. The spotted lanternfly arrived in Pennsylvania around 2014 and has since spread across much of the eastern United States. In its native range in China and Southeast Asia, lanternfly populations are regulated by a combination of natural enemies, including parasitoid wasps that attack lanternfly eggs, which do not exist in North America.

North American birds are encountering a prey item they have no evolutionary history with. Some species are learning to eat them, and the chemical defense issue is real but not absolute: plenty of lanternflies feed on hosts other than Ailanthus and remain palatable. But the sheer reproductive output of lanternflies overwhelms what generalist predators can handle. A single female lanternfly can lay 30 to 50 eggs in a mass, and she can deposit multiple masses in a season. In heavily infested areas, millions of lanternflies coat trees and structures in the fall. Even enthusiastic bird predation represents a small fraction of that population.

This is not unusual for invasive species. It typically takes decades for native predators to incorporate a new species into their diet in meaningful numbers, and even then the pest is rarely eliminated, just reduced. Researchers are separately working on importing specialized parasitoid wasps from the lanternfly’s native range, and those biological control agents may ultimately prove more effective than bird predation. But that work is still in testing phases and faces the usual regulatory hurdles before any foreign insect can be released in the wild.

Encouraging Bird Predation in Your Yard

While birds will not eradicate your lanternfly problem, encouraging predation can take some edge off a local infestation, especially if your property lacks tree of heaven. The house wren data are genuinely encouraging for gardeners: a pair of nesting wrens actively hunted lanternfly nymphs and fed them to their chicks. Setting up nest boxes at the right height and in the right locations for wrens and other cavity nesters can boost insect predation in your immediate area.

Woodpeckers, which the suet study showed will consume lanternfly material, are attracted by leaving dead trees or snags standing rather than removing them. Maintaining diverse native plantings supports a broader bird community, which in turn increases the chance that multiple species will sample lanternflies as part of their diet.

If you keep backyard chickens, you already have the most reported avian lanternfly predator on the job. Chickens are not picky about chemical defenses in the way wild birds tend to be, and they cover ground efficiently. Guinea fowl, another common backyard poultry species, are similarly enthusiastic insect hunters and have been anecdotally credited with clearing lanternflies from properties.

Removing tree of heaven from your property can have a double effect. It reduces the lanternfly’s preferred host, making your yard less attractive to them in the first place. And any lanternflies that do show up after feeding on other, non-Ailanthus hosts will carry lower levels of defensive chemicals, making them more appealing to the birds already in your yard. This creates a modest feedback loop: fewer Ailanthus trees means fewer well-defended lanternflies, which means more bird predation on the ones that remain.

What Happens When Birds Learn

One of the more interesting open questions is whether North American bird populations will ramp up lanternfly predation over time as individual birds and their offspring gain experience with the prey. Aposematic signals are only effective if predators respect them, and that respect comes from trial-and-error learning. A naive bird that eats a chemically loaded fourth-instar lanternfly and finds it revolting will generalize that experience to all red-and-black insects. But a bird that first encounters a lanternfly that was feeding on a grapevine and tastes fine may develop a very different relationship with the species.

In areas where lanternflies feed on diverse host plants, the warning colors could actually become unreliable signals. If half the brightly colored lanternflies a bird encounters taste fine and the other half taste bitter, the bird has less incentive to avoid them entirely. This kind of breakdown in aposematic signaling happens in other insect systems when the chemical defense is diet-dependent rather than produced by the insect itself. It is possible that in regions with limited Ailanthus, birds will become increasingly effective predators of lanternflies precisely because the chemical defense is weaker and the warning colors do not carry a consistent message.

Researchers do not yet have long-term data on whether bird predation rates on lanternflies are increasing over the years since introduction. The community science study was a snapshot, not a longitudinal tracking effort. But the finding that birds already constitute a substantial category of lanternfly predators, only a few years into the invasion, suggests some level of dietary flexibility that could grow with time. How fast that happens and whether it matters at the population level are questions that will take another decade or two to answer.