An invasive species now calls Kentucky home.

It's called the spotted Lanternfly.

Scientists warn the pest could have severe repercussions for the state's economy and quality of life.

Spotted Lanternfly is an invasive species that's originally from Asia.

They were accidentally imported to the United States, starting in Pennsylvania.

The first confirmed discovery there was in 2014.

And ever since they've spread to multiple other states.

This initial discovery was in Gallatin County, Kentucky, which is by Sparta, Kentucky.

That's one of the cities there.

The infestation that was discovered there, it was observed by a homeowner.

They have a beagle eyes and they noticed these bugs and they reported it.

They were trying to be very helpful.

And the infestation there is pretty small compared to other spots that you might see, say, in Pennsylvania or West Virginia.

We don't know if there are in other counties.

We have people making comments right now as we're talking about this past that they've seen it in many different areas.

But we can't verify that without physical evidence of some sort or a photograph of the insect.

So spotted Lanternfly feeds on over 70 different types of plants, maybe up to even 100 different types of plants.

They love to feed on willow Maple.

They have all these different plants that they'll feed on, but their preferred host is Tree of Heaven.

We do have Tree of Heaven in the state.

It is a very common, invasive plant in the state.

They love to be in railroad yards.

They'll be along the roadsides.

They like really disturbed habitats and they grow in these big clusters.

They have kind of compound leaves.

The bark looks vaguely like cantaloupe skin.

They're very smelly trees.

If you crack the sticks of them or if you cut one down, it smells very rancid.

And that is the house that they like to feed on the most.

They don't bite or sting people or animals, but they do land on us occasionally.

It's very startling to have this colorful inch long insect, sort of like a white dot on your shoulder.

So it startles people and then the honeydew that they produce, this is their fecal material that happens as they feed on the sap of the plant.

It's very sticky.

It gets all over everything.

It recruits black, sooty mold.

It recruits stinging insects that want to drink it.

And it sort of reduces our enjoyment of the outdoors.

There will be insecticides that people can use.

Right now, we're hoping that people won't necessarily go out to the store and buy a bunch of products and start spraying every insect that they see, because we just don't want to see that kind of impact on the environment.

But in the future, you may have your trees injected with certain products.

Some people may spray the insects themselves with different compounds, and that can help.

Larson says if you think you see a spotted lanternfly, take a picture and send it to report a pest at UK wide edu.

And please include the name of the county where the picture was taken.