Lovebugs

What’s not to love about lovebugs? Everything! My car was plastered with their dead bodies after my trip to St. Pete and back. I haven’t seen many here yet but the Ocala area was swarming with them so it won’t be long until we are inundated with them up here too. They can be found throughout the states that border the Gulf of Mexico and as far north as the Carolinas. They even have their own urban legend involving them being genetically engineered by the University of Florida for the purpose of eating mosquitoes. Sorry believers, it isn’t true. The University of Florida is all about the Gators, not lovebugs! Lovebugs have no natural predators, unless you count my car and they’re hard to clean off the car too. They drift along twice a year and obviously when they’re looking for love in all the wrong places, especially on the grill and windshield of my car. They eat dead vegetation (think grass thatch) while they are still in the larval stage. And each female lovebug lays between 100 and 350 eggs. The good news is they don’t sting so if you have a preschooler that isn’t squeamish about bugs lovebugs are the perfect bugs for them. Just don’t be surprised if they catch you swinging at a swarm, muttering some unkind words, and ask you why you don’t like them. After all they are just lovebugs.