The Green Girlfriend and I went to Sarasota, FL for the weekend and got a six-legged surprise as soon as we arrived at the airport. The windows at SRQ were crawling with love bugs, so named because they spend their entire adult lives joined at the rear end in a mating ritual.Love bugs are Florida's answer to the cicada -- harmless bugs that arrive suddenly and in huge numbers, living only to mate and fly clumsily into your ear causing you to involuntarily smack yourself in the side of the head.
But while dogs and squirrels call a temporary truce in their eternal feud to share in the feast of the cicadas, the love bugs have few natural predators. I didn't see any animals eating them, and one website indicated love bugs simply don't taste very good because they're highly acidic.
That same acidity makes the little bugs a gigantic pain for drivers. Spattered love bugs are very hard to scrape off of cars, and left uncleaned, will quickly cause permanent damage to the car's paint job.
I heard the rumor that the love bugs were somehow brought to Florida as a scientific experiment gone horribly wrong, but according to the Urban Legends site, that's false. They more likely hitched rides on ships and stayed in Florida for the prime real estate and great early bird specials.
According to the Internet's unimpeachable source of information, Wikipedia, urban sprawl has helped spread the lovebug:
Commercial use of cut sod for "instant" green lawns transports great numbers of the larvae of this insect, once found only in agricultural areas, to all of the newly built developments sprouting up in the towns of the regions where its numbers are increasing so rapidly as a new phenomenon.
Since they're not a native species, ordinarily I might rip love bugs a new ... whatever love bugs have back there. But love bugs are beneficial because their larvae eat mostly dead vegetation, recycling organic material and improving the soil, so they get a pass.
Unlike lightning bugs whose butts light up, love bugs don't have any aesthetic qualities that would endear themselves to me. In fact, you sit there and they seem to be attracted to any solid object or person. Thank goodness for my parent's screened in lanai. No love bugs in my mango margarita thank you very much!
ReplyDeleteBrings back fond memories of my Florida sojourn (Gainesville, late 80's). As a car proud California transplant, I hated what they did to the finish of my 77 VW Rabbit. Never got used to them the way I finally made a truce with Florida's other insect denizen, the famous "palmetto bug"--I went from screaming every time I saw one of those big suckers to making an agreement with them--don't come out in the kitchen while I'm in there, what you do in the dark is none of my business. Thanks for the trip down memory lane, Miles.
ReplyDeleteJust browsing the internet, very interesting website.
ReplyDeleteHow did you like my hometown?
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