Love Bugs and Rainbows

[snuggles]

Since we live only 10 miles from Florida we took a trip to Tallahassee to shop and eat. On the way down we noticed the Love Bugs are out in full force. Blahhhhhh Our windshield was covered before we got there.
On the other hand, we saw two beautiful rainbows on our trip home. One was the prettiest I've seen in a long time. I just wanted to share that for those that care, Love Bug season is here.

 

[Princess Michelle]

It certainly is! I had about 10 of them (well 5 if you only count them as 1 ) trying to get in my car today before I could get the door shut. Such pests they are.

How nice about the rainbows though, I love rainbows!

 

[dianeschlicht]

Yep, we saw lots of them this week down at OKW too. Both love bugs and rainbows, that is!

 

[linny172]

Those bugs are awful, was visiting my dad in Fla. last week, for a rental car had a new Sebring convertable and couldn't put the top down,

 

[nativetxn]

It's love bug season in east Texas too. Found out the hard way

 

[jamsmom]

IS there a place to find a picture of love bugs top show to someone who has never heard of them?

 

[snuggles]

Here's a site about the little buggers. The picture was harder to find than I thought. Hope this helps.

Love Bugs

 

[pumba]

when we were in disney in May I believe.....and the bus driver kept telling everyone to walk fast with mouth closed.....I didnt' know what he was talking about until ......later that day.....YUCK
Rainbows are a little extra from heaven.....arent' they nice

 

[gshoemate]

Yes they are, and they were attracted to my suntan lotion today. I was doing fine until I put the lotion on and all of the sudden they were all over me. I finally jumped in the pool to get away from them. But I will take love bugs over Palmetto bugs any day!!

 

[phamton]

Originally posted by snuggles
Here's a site about the little buggers. The picture was harder to find than I thought. Hope this helps.

Love Bugs

Here's a real live picture of them not a drawing: http://edis.ifas.ufl.edu/BODY_MG068

They are out and about right now in Orlando but not too bad yet. I even found an urban legend about lovebugs at snopes that I found interesting:

Claim: "Love bugs" are the result of a genetic experiment gone wrong.

Status: False.

(Collected on the Internet, 1995)

Back when I was a student at Florida State, I was told that love bugs were accidentally released from a biological experiment station at the University of Florida.

(Collected on the Internet, 1998)

Supposedly, the lovebug was "created" in a lab at UF by crossing a fly and a mosquito in an attempt to create an enemy for mosquito larva. It supposedly got loose and now populates the whole southern US.

Every May and September these sex-crazed critters become an annoyance bordering on intolerable as the air teems with mating pairs. But the "love bugs" haven't always been part of the Floridian landscape, thus we've seen an abundance of "mad scientist" stories about how the state came to be infested with them. (Love bugs are not solely a Floridian plague; they range throughout the Gulf states and into Mexico and Central America, as well as up into Georgia and South Carolina. But they seem particularly enamored of Florida.)

Truth is, Mother Nature is far more to be feared than any mad scientist and is far more capricious. In this case, she inspired some of her children to migrate to a new area, and in doing so prompted the creation of a number of rumors which attempt to explain why these critters came to take up residence in places where they weren't found before.

http://www.snopes.com/critters/lurkers/lovebugs.htm

Bev