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In texas we have bugs that fly around hooked-up.

Lovebugs are stuck — on mates and everything else
They're amorous, annoying and filling the air, pair by pair
By SALATHEIA BRYANT
Copyright 2005 Houston Chronicle

Those long trips can get pretty lonely for Jesus Guzman as he hauls cargo in his 18-wheeler, but not at this time of year.

The 27-year-old trucker had plenty of passengers along for the ride this week while taking a load of candy to Atlanta — so many, in fact, that he stopped in the Houston area to get rid of a few.

"I don't like them," Guzman said as he dipped a squeegee into a bucket of dirty, soapy water and tried to clean hundreds of smashed lovebugs from his windshield.

Like them or not, the lovebugs are back for their semiannual swarm in the southern United States. Locked in embrace with their mates as they flit through the air each spring and fall, they provoke dark oaths from motorists while plastering windshields and grilles.

"It's a seasonal phenomenon and it tells you that late spring is here," said Nancy Greig, the outgoing director of the Cockrell Butterfly Center at the Houston Museum of Natural Science. "They don't hurt anything. You just have to live with them for a few days and then they are gone."

They won't be gone soon enough for Guzman. He pulled off Interstate 10 in Baytown earlier this week to clean away some of the black gunk that had accumulated on his windshield, grille and side mirrors since he left San Antonio.

"This can make an accident because you can't see the road," said Guzman, of El Paso. "It's a big problem."

There's one glimmer of good news, however: Greig doesn't expect a plentiful showing of lovebugs this season because they need a humid environment and, except for the weekend thunderstorms, this area has had a dry spring.

The black-bodied insects, which have a reddish-orange thorax, are called lovebugs or honeymoon flies because of their midair copulation ritual.

Forget Paris Hilton; these critters live the simple life. They sip flower nectar, mate and die.

Experts say they typically pair up for about 56 hours. But while they may be dutiful lovers, they have few admirers.

"I noticed them yesterday. They are already out. I hate them," said Farrell Dauzat, owner of Radiators Unlimited on South Loop 610 East in Houston.

The re-appearance of lovebugs may bring him more customers, but Dauzat and his employees dread the mess.

Lovebugs migrated from Central America and have made themselves at home in much of the South.

Greig said the species was first described in this area by an entomologist named Hardy in Galveston in 1940. They have been seen as far north as Wilmington, N.C.

The adult mating season for the lovebug occurs in the spring and fall, with females laying an average of 350 eggs, Greig said. The larvae breed in moist habitats that are high in organic matter, such as ditches and swampy areas.

The eggs that are laid in this spring's mating season will produce the generation that creates next fall's messy windshields.

"They come out in these enormous swarms all at once," said Timothy Mousseau, a University of South Carolina professor who has studied lovebugs for about 10 years.

"They fly around in tandem," he said. "These flies are so much in your face, you can't help but notice them."

Mousseau said he receives about 40 samples annually and dozens of e-mails chronicling the dates and locations of lovebug sightings.

He has a Web site dedicated to the lovebug, studies its reproductive behavior and looks for reasons to explain how these foreign invaders have done so well.

He has even received testimonials from motorcyclists who report that lovebugs taste horrible.

"Houston seems conducive to lovebug production," Mousseau said.

Truck driver David Casillas was among those pulling their big rigs off the highway this week to clear away the deceased bugs. He said that, even after he scrubs his blue truck, a faint residue is left.

"I guess it's too much love in Texas," said Casillas. "These bugs just kind of stick on there. I guess they are better than hitting a deer."

Trucker J.L. Eddie said he accepts this seasonal intrusion as a way of life in Texas and, in a small way, he envies the bugs' lifestyle.

"You can't do nothing about them but deal with them," he said. "I guess they are just doing their thing. What man wouldn't want to fly around all day making love?"

http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/metropolitan/3176508