Love bug
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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This page is about the insect. For information about the internet virus, see VBS/Loveletter. For the film, see The Love Bug. For the Swiss britpop band see Lovebugs (band). For the Italian comedy television show, see Un gars, une fille.
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| Plecia nearctica |
The love bug (also known as lovebug, march fly, honeymoon fly, telephone bug, kissybug and double-headed bug) (scientific name Plecia nearctica) is a small flying insect common to the southern United States, especially along the Gulf Coast. It is most often known as a serious nuisance to motorists.
It was first described in 1940 by D. E. Hardy of Galveston, Texas. At that time, he reported the incidence of love bugs to be widespread, but most common in Texas and Louisiana. By the end of the 20th century, however, it had spread heavily to all areas bordering the Gulf of Mexico, as well as Georgia, South Carolina, Florida, and other parts of Central America. L. A. Hetrick, writing in 1970, found it very widespread in Florida and described its flights as reaching altitudes of 300 m to 450 m and extending several kilometers over the Gulf.
[edit] A public nuisance
The love bug is one of only two species of genus Plecia (out of more than 200 species worldwide) found in the U.S. (the other, Plecia americana Hardy, extends in range from North Carolina to Mexico and is a woodland species that does not seem to be a problem on highways, though its life cycle is otherwise similar to P. nearctica.) P. nearctica varies in mass from 6 mg to 10 mg in the male and 15 mg to 25 mg in the female (most of the difference being due to the ovaries, which contain 70 percent of the total protein in the body). It appears in two generations, in May and September, each lasting about four weeks. The larvae feed on decaying plant material; adults do not eat at all, though they are frequently seen clustering on goldenrod flowers. Adults seem attracted to bright white and yellow objects. The name love bug comes from the fact that, during the adult phase, the bugs are often seen mating, including during flight.
Its character as a public nuisance is due not to its bite or sting (as it is not capable of either) but to its apparently highly acidic body chemistry. Because airborne love bugs are drawn in enormous numbers to roadways, they die en masse on automobile windshields, hoods, and radiator grills. If left for more than an hour or two, the remains become dried and extremely difficult to remove, and their acidity pits and etches automotive paint and chrome [1]. Scrubbing deceased love bugs off the front of one's car immediately after the evening rush hour is a twice-yearly ritual for commuters in the Gulf South[citation needed]. The use of drier sheets makes cleaning love bugs off your car much easier[citation needed].
[edit] Trivia
Popular tongue-in-cheek lore holds that love bugs are actually man-made, the result of a University of Florida genetics experiment gone wrong. [2] As the creature seemed to have no natural enemies its population was perceived to be reaching enormous levels. This is of course wrong; love bugs are not a favored food of most insectivores, but they are harmless and merely do not taste good, and thus do not get eaten. The apparent population explosion may for the largest part explained by the fact that with increasing automobile use and rising population, the nuisance that love bugs may be has come to more widespread notice: at the time of Hardy's study, the density of the road network and the extent of personal transport ownership in the species' area of occurrence was much lower than it is today.
[edit] References
- Hardy, D. E. (1940). "Studies in New World Plecia (Bibionidae: Diptera)". Journal of the Kansas Entomological Society 13: 15-27.
- Hetrick, L. A. (1970). "Biology of the "lovebug," Plecia nearctica (Diptera: Bibionidae)". Florida Entomologist 53: 23-26.
- Denmark, H.A. and F.W. Mead (1998/rev. 2001). Featured Creatures: Lovebug – Plecia nearctica Hardy. University of Florida Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences. Retrieved on July 20, 2006.
