Lovebugs

I am getting very lazy blipwise; actually I am very busy and can't see myself getting out to look for something more interesting. Another Love Bug season is underway, with pairs of the tiny flies ending up splattered on Florida's cars and trucks. Love Bugs are small flies that are in the process of mating when they swarm over the roads. Usually there are two individuals: the large one is the female and the small one is the male. The female usually gets her way and she drags the male around with her, willy nilly, (no pun intended), flying through the air, or crawling rapidly across windscreens, and many pairs of the tiny flies end up splattered on Florida's cars and trucks. Like many of us, Florida is not the Love Bug's original home. They were introduced from South America, and they spread around the Gulf of Mexico through Texas and Louisiana to invade Florida through the Panhandle and then down through the state. The Love Bugs that traveled to Florida (without being flattened against a moving car) have only made their appearance within the past fifty or sixty years, where they can be seen in great numbers on the roads between ten a.m. and four p.m. and those hot engines and the exhaust fumes are what attract them there, so there's quite an industry of washing cars that would disappear if we didn't have them.