Scientists trained 182 pet dogs to sniff out one of America's most destructive invasive insects, and most successfully found its hidden eggs

The spotted lanternfly has become one of the most destructive invasive insects in the United States, threatening vineyards, orchards and forests by feeding on the sap of hundreds of plant species. Finding its egg masses before they hatch is one of the most effective ways to slow its spread, but the eggs are well camouflaged and often overlooked by human searchers. Scientists have now shown that an unexpected group of volunteers could help. In one of the largest participatory detection-dog studies of its kind, researchers trained 182 pet dog-owner teams to recognise spotted lanternfly egg masses. Many of the dogs later demonstrated they could transfer that training to live egg masses, opening the door to a scalable, community-based approach to invasive species management. Why researchers recruited 182 pet dogs instead of relying only on professional detection teamsThe findings come from the study ‘Evaluating the Effectiveness of Participatory Science Dog Teams to Detect Devitalised Spotted Lanternfly (Lycorma delicatula) Egg Masses’ by Sally Dickinson, Mizuho Nita, Edgar O. Aviles-Rosa, Nathan Hall and Erica N. Feuerbacher of Virginia Tech and Texas Tech University. Rather than usin...