Talk:Lovebug

Plagarism

I noticed that this article looks like it was pretty much stolen verbatim from http://entomology.ifas.ufl.edu/creatures.ifas.ufl.edu/misc/lovebug.htm .

Actually, I took the information from four books, three articles (I'm a librarian), and maybe three websites (including the one you cite)—plus my own experiences, which are what led me to write the article in the first place. I reworked the factual information from all these sources, which is how Wikipedia articles are created, but the information is fact, so the data is going to be essentially the same in any article you read. However, I've just reread the website and it does not read the same. Michael K. Smith 01:00, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

I am the Project Coordinator for the UF/IFAS Featured Creatures (FC) Web site that has the lovebug publication at http://entomology.ifas.ufl.edu/creatures.ifas.ufl.edu/misc/lovebug.htm. Today was the first time I have ever visited the Wikipedia lovebug page and I did some work on it. I have revised the FC publication over the years since it was first published as I have fielded way-too-many calls about this fly in the past 29 years. And I can tell you that after the first 500 calls, the excitement wears off, which is why I paid special attention to the FC publication and now the Wikipedia page. At no time, while reading and working with the Wikipedia page today did the thought cross my mind that major parts of it were taken from the FC publication. In fact, I see a lot that needs editing to make it up-to-date. I hope to get back to this chore next week. Thomas Fasulo 19:39, 18 July 2008 (UTC)

At various times, this wiki article and the original articles it was plagiarized from/by (do not know the order: who stole from whom first?--several complete sentences are identical down to optional punctuation, hardly incidental) have alternately claimed that adult love bugs never eat, or they eat nectar during their few days in adult form. Which is correct?

"Copy from one, it’s plagiarism; copy from two, it’s research."

Wilson Mizner (1876-1933) 205.172.172.132 (talk) 20:53, 29 May 2009 (UTC)

Attracted to shopping carts?

Lately, I have noticed that lovebugs are strictly attracted to the shopping carts. I know this may be weird, but I am an associate of Publix supermarket in Florida as a bagger. As it was time for me to get the carts out of the roads and put them back to the store, I could tell that the lovebugs were always on the shopping carts and when they fly away, they just come back to the carts again. Has anyone noticed this before? It's just strange, really. Drakky 05:26, 31 May 2006 (UTC)

Red dot on throax

Anyone ever noticed the orange bubble like dot present on love bugs before the wings? Anyone happen to know the purpose?

The red color of the upper thorax may be a visual clue to other lovebugs. Another Plecia species that inhabits almost the same range of the lovebug has this red coloring almost entirely over the thorax, not just the top. See the UF/IFAS Featured Creatures lovebug article for details. Thomas R. Fasulo (talk) 23:57, 19 September 2008 (UTC)

Genetic experiment

So, the whole story about them being some kind of genetic experiment is just that, a story? That sucks, i was kinda hoping it was true. As for the above comments: Drakky—lovebugs are strictly attracted to EVERYTHING, trust me; Anonymous guy: I have no idea. Wikiwow 22:22, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

Hey I just recently stained my porches and they are extremely attracted to that as well. As well as my white doors. its a battle to open the doors of fear they will enter. they also have seemed to come thru the cracks of the doors at the bottom so i have to keep a towl at the bottom of my brand new house doors. Does anybody know how to get rid of them?? i would appreciate it. yours truly, Sick Love Bug Blues

Yeah, they really seem to love bright white surfaces, they can't seem to get enough of our porch. I don't know how to get rid of them, but that guy down at the bottom says a bowl of water will work O_o. Love bug season's waning anyways, so at least we'll get a break until next year. Wikiwow 20:33, 1 October 2006 (UTC)

A public nuisance section

I added a photo of how many love bugs can be seen in one spot to show how big of a nuisance they are. In the photo you can see a ton of black dots, those are all living love bugs covering a bus stop at Disney World this past September. I don't know if some people who have never seen them know how many there can be in one area. Napnet 17:57, 10 October 2006 (UTC)

Impossible citations

Scrubbing deceased love bugs off the front of one's car immediately after the evening rush hour is a twice-yearly ritual for commuters in the Gulf South[citation needed].
This is an ordinary, very obvious observation for anyone who lives on the Gulf Coast. It's ridiculous to expect a citation.

The use of drier sheets makes cleaning Love Bugs off your car much easier[citation needed].
This, on the other hand, is impossible to document because it's one of those things some anonymous Gulf Coaster discovered about two hours after dryer sheets were invented. Everybody I know uses them for this purpose. Michael K. Smith 00:50, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

Agreed on the first sentence, disagreed on second. Though the second sentence shouldn't require a cite, its definitely original research. "everyone you know" isn't that great a source of information. I live on the coastal plain in Texas, have dealt with lovebugs every year for my entire life, and have never heard of what you say regarding drier sheets. But you're right, its not something that deserves citation. It deserves to be removed entirely. 24.175.240.129 17:30, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

I partially agree with the above statement

I'm going to remove all of the references to using dryer sheets for removal of the insects remains. The problem isn't if someone, somewhere uses them, it's that it simply doesn't matter. Some people may use an old sock, and they may feel that it's hands down the best way to remove them, but there's no scientific evidence to believe that either is better than a paper towel, a cloth towel, steel wool, grass, or any other material you want to rub their guts off with. Also, I don't think it's relevant to state that the people of the gulf coast region may have reason to wash their cars more often. Unless we have some sort of study or perhaps a useful poll there's no way to tell if this extra cleaning is anything special to the such a large group of people. Anyway, I'm deleting the removal instructions, the referral to there being some sort of semi-annual cleaning ritual, and I will leave a small reference to the dryer sheets so that people can know that it is inconsequential. Benderful 17:50, 2 September 2007 (UTC)

Comment moved from article

I have been in Florida since 1959 and have seen the growth of the love bug population all these years. The lore that I have heard was that the University Of Florida researchers put the Love Bug larvae in a petri dish with mosquito larvae and that the Love Bugs hatched first and ate the mosquito larvae. The researchers were so ecstatic that they imported thousands of Love Bug larvae to release into the wild to control the mosquito population. However they failed to realize that the Love bugs lay their eggs in the sand and the mosquitoes lay theirs in the water so the "twain shall never meet" and the Love Bug population never helped the Mosquito problem, and the Love Bugs with no natural enemy except the automobile have mushroomed into the mess you clean off your vehicle. JG.

Seems like University researchers would have experimented better than that, and known where the respective larvae would be placed for growth. This "lore" seems completely unfounded.24.175.240.129 17:25, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

The University of Florida had nothing to do with the creation of this species or the introduction of it into areas. It simply migrated around the coast of the Gulf, perhaps from Central America, into Texas and then other other humid Gulf states. Perhaps this fable is simply a red herring created by the car washing industry which is probably responsible - Ha! Thomas Fasulo (talk) 14:31, 22 July 2008 (UTC)

What's in the name?

Anyone know why they are called love bugs? I was wondering about it..

Svetlana Miljkovic 03:40, 5 January 2007 (UTC)

It's because of the couplation. 71.0.242.38 04:45, 1 March 2007 (UTC)

Yeah, because all they do is make "love". 9-22-07

Spreading to other areas?

I first saw these things while helping with Hurricane Katrina cleanup in coastal Mississippi. I had never seen them in my lifetime in Oklahoma. Now I have seen several in Tulsa, and a friend has a full-blown infestation at her house here. Seems really strange to me that these bugs just appeared here in the past year or so. I wonder how many other geographic areas they've spread to since Katrina.

Don't call them an infestation. I think anyone who can experience a swarm of lovebugs is lucky. Its quite an experience. Mark 2000 05:25, 1 March 2007 (UTC)

They are a nuisance for sure. Ask the Gulf Coast motorcyclist if hes lucky getting a mouthful of lovebugs. But in terms of an infestation, mosquitoes definitely take that prize! 24.175.240.129 17:34, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

Among the worst

They say this lovebug season in Central Florida ranks among the worst in history...DJSEDISTICAL 00:07, 14 May 2007 (UTC)

In North Central Florida (Gainesville) the May 2007 lovebug season was minimal. We barely saw any. However, September 2006 was the worst ever! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.101.68.118 (talk) 13:18, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

This is all subjective. I remember living in central Florida in the early 80s when you had to carry a container of water and a brush in your car and stop every half hour or so to clean your windowshield. Even then the flights were not as massive as preceding decades. Now I don't even bother to attach the "lovebug screen" that I bought at an auto parts store. This used to be almost a requirement during the two flight seasons of the year. User:Trfasulo 09:14, 23 July 2008 (UTC)

In the late 1960's, lovebug swarms along I-10 (what there was of it) in northern Florida were--immense is an insufficient word. Clouds of many thousands of the critters, mile after mile after mile. They actually caused car engine overheating as they clogged grills and radiators with their corpses.They diminished and nobody complained, but I for one have always wondered what happened to them. Rumor was the robins ate them, but so many?? Wikipedia comes through again! — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2602:306:CF99:2080:ED5A:7BD9:4E6B:2871 (talk) 18:27, 19 April 2019 (UTC)

Read the article. The decline of the lovebug as an immense problem is due to the fact that its natural biological controls caught up with the polulation. Thomas R. Fasulo (talk) 02:47, 17 January 2021 (UTC)

Vanishing into thin air?

Where do "lovebugs" go when dormant? Anyone know? linsey,9-22-07

The lovebugs you see are the adult flies. The immature larvae (maggots) actually live in the thatch of turfgrass and other plants on highway sides and medium, or pastures. For about ten months of the year, these maggots are eating dead vegetation. Then they pupate into adult flies to reproduce. There are two to three (south Florida) generations per year. Thomas R. Fasulo (talk) 23:23, 23 September 2010 (UTC)

Description of Swarms is Exaggerated

Love bug swarms can number in the hundreds of thousands and blanket an entire small town in a dense cloud of insects. The thick swarming of these slow flying, almost drifting, insects almost is reminiscent of snow fall.

I've lived in lovebug habitat all my life and I really think the description of swarms, and dense clouds blanketing entire towns is exaggerated. Lovebugs occur in huge numbers, but they don't swarm, they drift around in a diffuse fashion, though I don't see how it could be reminiscent of snowfall. If one objects, I'll come back and make a change. 68.42.56.112 23:30, 20 September 2007 (UTC)

Fixed Some Innacuracies

This article formerly stated that adult love bugs do not feed. This was inaccurate. I have three sources for the fact that they feed on nectar: the following article from UF (http://edis.ifas.ufl.edu/BODY_MG068), the book "Florida's Fabulous Insects", and my own personal observation. Also, this article misused the term swarm. A better term for the large groupings of love bugs is "flight" so I used this term. In addition I cleaned up the use of "it" and "they" in the first couple of paragraphs. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.42.56.112 (talk) 15:34, 4 March 2008 (UTC)

Love Bug vs Lovebug

Note that the article title is now wrong. Needs to be moved to new article with correct title. (Still need redirect from here). Student7 (talk) 22:48, 18 July 2008 (UTC)

Edited Semi-Pest Status section

I personally do not know anything about dryer sheets helping to remove lovebug residues, but I know they (dryer sheets) are effective in keeping deer away from fruit and vegetables. Makes one wonder why people want their clothes to smell like that. I know dryer sheet odors give me headaches. However, I did edit the "Semi-Annual Pest Status" section today to reflect my 29 years of experience with lovebugs at UF and the improvements of automotive paints and coatings. Lovebugs are not the bane of auto paint they once were due to improvements in paints and coatings. While they can still damage paint, this usually only happens if residues are left on for excessive periods of time. Removing residues quickly is no longer necessary. I also added text to show that it is really the egg masses that are the problem, not the dead adult. Most of this is detailed in the Featured Creatures article which someone originally added as a reference and which I updated the format of. I also deleted some repetitive text about paint damage from this section. Thomas Fasulo (talk) 10:33, 22 July 2008 (UTC)

Management

I added this section, moving some text from "Folklore" and provided additional text. I know that I might come in for some criticism from anyone who wishes to believe this species has no predators, parasites or pathogens or disagrees about how some states are now intelligently managing their road maintenance practices. However, all of my additions are based on discussion with experts in these areas. I plan to review this topic again for some fine tuning. If you have suggestions, I certainly will be open minded about them. Thomas Fasulo (talk) 12:08, 22 July 2008 (UTC)

Seeing as how most of the editing of this article has been folklore which had to be reverted for the past year or so, your additions are most welcome. If you could just add in-line footnotes, the article would be even more improved and might even discourage vandals/folklore additions. Thanks. Student7 (talk) 21:36, 22 July 2008 (UTC)

Thank you. I'll eventually try to do this, but I am still in a learning mode. Every time I register I learn something new about editing in Wikipedia. Tonight I leaned how to reference another Wikipedia page that does not contain the text in the first article. Thomas Fasulo (talk) 21:41, 22 July 2008 (UTC)

Easier to do it as you edit. Pain to go back. Just give me the source here. I will reformat it. I will "name" them so all you have to do is copy and paste when they duplicate. Nice if it were online but book is fine. title, author, publisher, date. Don't need page. Thanks.Student7 (talk) 13:35, 23 July 2008 (UTC)

Using another reference as a guide I added several references to areas I added. Thank you for your offer of help. I will be spending more time reading the Help section. Trfasulo (talk) 19:34, 23 July 2008 (UTC)

Major revision of UF lovebug article

Resolving some of the problems in the WP article made me revisit the UF/IFAS Featured Creatures (a site I coordinate) lovebug publication. As a result, I made a major revision of that publication, simplifying and rearranging text to make it more readable, adding new text from more recent scientific publications, deleted some images and added a few new ones. That major rewrite is on the Featured Creatures page now. I plan to do a final review of the publication, after dismissing it from my mind for a day or so, and I may make a few more minor changes. As a result, I have added my name as the junior author of the FC pub and that is why the authors on the FC reference on the WP page have changed. I want to thank those who have been catching the various acts of vandalism to this article that was present long before I discovered it. Hopefully, the end of lovebug "season" will result in vandals ignoring the WP article until next year. Thomas R. Fasulo (talk) 00:51, 18 September 2008 (UTC)

Citations and references

Today I modified the citations and references to reflect WP standards. I also removed a dead link to a newspaper article and replaced those citations with citations to other references. I also removed the Snopes citations that were not also listed as a reference. If you go to Snopes, its references are two University of Florida references that are already in the article.

Plus, I replaced the citation for lovebugs being seen as far north as Wilmington, NC that used the Denmark, Mead and Fasulo reference. I replaced it with a citation to the Mousseau reference. Why? Because that was the reference I used to add that city to the UF/IFAS Denmark, Mead and Fasulo publication.

BTW - Lovebugs must be late emerging this year. I expected the vandalism to start in late August. Thomas R. Fasulo (talk) 23:16, 23 September 2010 (UTC)

Mouths

Another possibly rumor I've heard (along with their University of Florida "origins") is that lovebugs in their adult form lack mouths and are completely incapable of ingesting food. Basically, once they mature, all they can do is mate, lay eggs, and die. I don't know if there's any truth to this, given the sources. (The same type of sources that claim they're the result of a failed genetic experiment, so this makes them somewhat questionable.) I wonder if anyone else has heard this rumor, and if it's worth mentioning along with the other stuff in the folklore section. (Unfortunately, Google is extremely unhelpful on this topic, as the number of links containing the word "lovebug" which have absolutely nothing to do with the insect is astronomical.) Lurlock (talk) 04:50, 24 September 2010 (UTC)

Adult lovebugs feed on nectar but have short lifespans. The article already dismisses the rumor that they were the result of a genetic experiment.Thomas R. Fasulo (talk) 11:47, 24 September 2010 (UTC)

I know - that's why I said those sources were questionable. I just wondered if anyone else had heard these rumors and if they're significant enough (despite being false) to be included (and of course refuted) in the folklore section. Lurlock (talk) 17:29, 1 October 2010 (UTC)

Sorry. As a University of Florida (UF) entomologist, I'm somewhat sensitive to any mention of the continual rumor (I've heard it for 31 years and counting.) that previous UF entomologists had anything to do with "creating" the lovebug. We sometimes joke that if we had a dollar for every time someone told us or asked if "UF entomologists developed the lovebug," that we could retire early. This rumor seems harder to kill than the one that Elvis is alive. As a result, I do think this very irritating (to us) piece of folklore deserves a mention in the article. Thomas R. Fasulo (talk) 18:17, 1 October 2010 (UTC)

Understandable, though I was referring specifically to the "lack-of-mouths" rumor, rather than the "UF-experiment" rumor, which is already in the article. I'm trying to determine if it's just a few people I've met that falsely believe this (thus too anecdotal to mention) or if there's a more widespread phenomenon worthy of inclusion and debunking here. My general yardstick for notability of this sort of thing is a Google search, but since "lovebug" is used in so many non-entomological contexts, it's nearly useless in this case. Lurlock (talk) 14:47, 2 October 2010 (UTC)

Well, they do have mouth parts. For the work I do on Wikipedia, if there is a better resource that I work on, then I keep my work on the WP article to the minimum necessary to inform, with a link to the external site. For example, in this case, to the Featured Creatures publication that I am a junior author of. That may not be WP's wish, but it is mine. There are too many other areas in WP that need info that I can contribute to than exist elsewhere. Another example is the Battle of Olustee. The WP article is slim, not even a stub, compared to the Web site I run on that American Civil War battle. But, after seeing some e-mails about lovebug "mouths and feeding," I recently added the line "The larvae (maggots) feed on partially decayed vegetation in the landscape and, in this respect, are beneficial. Adults feed only on nectar during their brief lifespan.[1]" to the WP article. Obviously, if the adults feed on nectar, they have "mouths," or more properly "mouth parts." Thomas R. Fasulo (talk) 17:09, 2 October 2010 (UTC)

Ambiguous opener

The second paragraph states "At that time, he reported the incidence of lovebugs to be widespread, but most common in Texas, Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana. However, by the end of the 20th century the species had spread heavily to all areas bordering the Gulf of Mexico, as well as Georgia and South Carolina." But this makes no sense. All the states in the initial distribution border the Gulf of Mexico, so the 2nd sentence makes no sense. Furthermore, Georgia borders the Gulf of Mexico. I'm hesitant to edit, as I'm not clear on what the intended/correct text should be. Tfocker4 (talk) 11:13, 10 June 2016 (UTC)

 Er, Georgia borders the Gulf? Regionally, maybe, but not directly. Are you perhaps thinking of Alabama?  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2602:306:CF99:2080:1A8:84AF:19FB:9266 (talk) 22:12, 19 April 2019 (UTC) 

Poorly Written

This article reads less as a description of the species and its behavior and more as a propaganda piece against lovebugs. Several sentences are worded VERY poorly ("The love bug is a pest costing Floridians more in car washes," gets bonus points for being both vague AND inaccurate; the lovebug is a semi-annual pest in Florida and the Southern US, not a pest species) and paragraphs are composed of different topics hastily jammed together without any kind of transition or information to relate them. Considering the additional failures throughout the article to uphold the standards of academic writing (why is so much of this written with a narrative???), this reads less as a well-researched summary of information and more as a second-rate elementary school research project.

The section on the species' 'Semi-annual pest status' is a particularly terrible example of the faults of this piece, beginning with a more-or-less accurate account (albeit incredibly lacking as far as quality of writing is concerned) of the species' mating behavior and then jumping to the species' interactions with Florida motorists. There should be one section to describe the mating behavior of the species and the resultant swarming and another to describe their semi-annual pest status across the Southern United States (Florida isn't the only state with lovebug swarms and this should be noted at least somewhere in the article).

Similarly awful, the section on 'Management' (which should be specified to something along the lines of population control, concerns over population, etc.) is so poorly written that one actually manages to finish it knowing less about the environmental controls that limited the spread of this species. This entire section needs to be reworked from the ground up, removing any of the narrative elements, properly dividing the two subjects present (the concerns over the species' population and the natural controls such as predators, environmental controls, etc. they face in the wild), and doing whatever else is necessary to prevent whatever the hell this sentence is supposed to be from happening ever again:

"However, as pest populations migrate naturally, their natural controls are usually not far behind. While it often took decades, lovebug flights are no longer present in the huge numbers that once existed simply because their natural controls (mostly fungi) caught up with established populations."

Additionally, as seen in the prior example, the species is referred to as a 'pest species' throughout the article in spite of doing very little actual damage, not being invasive (having naturally migrated to the regions it currently is found in), and doing no harm to local vegetation or crops. If anything, the species should be regarded as a nuisance to motorists and entomophobes.

I cannot believe an article on a species so infamous is in this kind of condition. CarefulWording (talk) 21:41, 10 October 2023 (UTC)

LOL. It is ironic that someone that titles themselves "CarefulWording" should apparently be ignorant of the fact that "pest" and "nuisance" are synonyms. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2601:589:300:C7C0:84C3:81E3:4B4B:1C0E (talk) 01:37, 11 November 2023 (UTC)