Published on Monday, May 28, 2007
in the Los Angeles Times

For Florida drivers, there is no love lost for lovebugs

FORT LAUDERDALE, FLA. — It's May, love is in the air — and motorists on Florida highways during the Memorial Day holiday should expect it on the windshield, grille and paint job. Or for motorcyclists, in their teeth.

Once again, it's the season of the lovebug, or Plecia nearctica.

From Florida to North Carolina, the smallish black and red bugs hatch, mate, lay eggs and die, all in a matter of days.

They are attracted not only to each other for marathon aerial mating (12 hours average) but to hot highways awash in engine exhaust.

And thus to windshields and grilles, where acid from splattered lovebugs can pit a car's paint if left in the sun. They can also clog radiators.

The influx of the amorous insects has been such this year that the Florida Highway Patrol warned drivers to expect swarms of the bugs along rural highways and long lines of cars at turnpike wash stations.

Windshields covered with the bugs' carcasses "can cause the same impairment to visibility as smog or smoke from wildfires," said Sgt. Jorge Delahoz of the Highway Patrol.

Savvy drivers bring water and a squeegee, and never run wipers across a bug-spattered windshield, unless they want it smeared with a pasty goo.