An early-October frost probably signaled the end of the
semiannual plague of lovebugs
in south Georgia.

“That, and the fact that it’s been five-plus weeks since
they started around here
should pretty much do it for this year,” said Will Hudson,
an entomologist with the
University of Georgia College of Agricultural and Environmental
Sciences. “The
question now is whether next year will continue the recent trend
toward increasing
populations in south Georgia.”

This fall’s swarms of lovebugs were the biggest in years.
They
couldn’t go away too
soon for motorists. “I’ve traveled all over the country, and
that’s the most bugs
I’ve ever seen in my life,” said one traveler near Tifton,
Ga.

‘Love’ on the
Wing

Lovebugs (Plecia neartictica) are small black and
red
flies. They have moved
from Central America into states along the Gulf of Mexico.
Getting their name from their
curious nature, lovebugs mate on the fly for about a day out of
their two-day adult lives.
“They stay coupled, mated for 12 to 15 hours at least,”
Hudson said. The female
lays her eggs in the grass along roadsides and in pastures, and
then dies.

In late April and May, the eggs she laid in September and
October hatch with smashing
regularity, causing more hate than love among the humans passing
by. Hudson said the cycle
is something drivers just have to live with. If you sprayed a
pesticide to get rid of
them, he said, “you’d have to spray the entire grassy
roadside area every two hours
for several weeks.”

‘Here to Stay’

Obviously, getting rid of lovebugs altogether would be
impractical, if not impossible,
and environmentally unsound. “They’re here to stay,”
Hudson said. “They’ve
moved into the Southeast, and they like it very well.”
Lovebugs aren’t all bad, he
said. As small worms, they clean up the ground litter, eating a
lot of dead leaves.