Love is in the Air: Everything You Need to Know About Lover Beetles

ORLANDO, Florida. – If you’ve lived in Florida long enough, you’ve probably seen them fly or stick to your car.

Love bugs often fly in tandem and can be the cause of some nasty conversations.

“Because of this, I had a very awkward conversation with my daughter, who, when she was very tiny, caught a little mistress and asked: “Daddy, why does this insect have two heads?” And I stumbled and stumbled and said, “We’ll talk about this when you’re older,” Florida Fourth Estate co-host Matt Austin said.

Austin and Ginger Gadsden understand what love bugs do, where they come from, and how to get them off your car.

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The duo spoke with Dr. Norman K. Leppla of the University of Florida at Florida’s Fourth Estate. He has dedicated his life to the study of insects and knows a lot about love beetles.

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So why do they fly with two heads?

“Do they just live in ecstasy all the time?” Austin said.

“Do they smoke small, tiny cigarettes?” Gadsden added.

“In fact, they guard their paternity. So it doesn’t take long, but then they take off and the male wants to make sure that other males can’t mate with that female,” Leppla said.

Austin and Gadsden were appalled by the question of whether love bugs are “control freaks” or “stalkers”.

“Well, in a way, a stalker is a good analogy for what they do,” Leppla said. “If you look closely, it’s mostly males that swarm. They come out ahead of the females and wait and then compete – we don’t say “sneak”, we say “compete”. And one of the males grabs the female, after which she mates and flies away.”

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Now that we know what they’re doing, Gadsden wanted to know about the big mess they leave on all cars during love bug season.

“Those are eggs,” Leppla said. “These are insect eggs. They drop 300 or more and that’s what happens to your car.”

It might look nasty, but Leppla said it would help if you got him out of your car ASAP.

He recommends waxing your car at the start of both love bug seasons. If you leave them on for longer than a day, he says you should use a wet dryer to take them off.

While this may be all you need to know about love bugs, there is more.

“These are not bugs. Technically they are flies. They are distant relatives of mosquitoes. And in many ways, their behavior is similar to what mosquitoes do,” Leppla said. “They’re not poisonous, they don’t sting, they don’t bite.”

Leppla also dispelled a widespread rumor. He said love bugs weren’t created in a University of Florida lab.

“We’re pretty damn good at microbiology, but not that good,” he said.

“(Lovebugs came here) on their own, basically from the Yucatan, around 1960, maybe a little earlier, we might have helped them by moving things like turf. Through the new highway system. At that time, highway construction was beginning in Florida. Many people came to us and they wanted a lot of grass and other vegetation. So with them go love bugs.

Listen to the full talk about the Florida Fourth Estate (link to FFE on clicko). You can download it wherever you listen to podcasts or watch anytime in News 6+.

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