Spring2021_SSCWN_web

The Birds and the Bugs
The anatomy
of a Lovebug
(in case your customers were wondering)
Binomial Name: Plecia Nearctica
Other names: Double-headed Bug, Honeymoon
Fly, Kissingbug, March Fly, Tele-phone Bug, and
United Bug.
Found in: Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana,
Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina,
Texas, Costa Rica, Guatemala, Honduras, and
Mexico.
Infestation seasons: Spring (late April and May
and late August and September).
Lifespan: 2-3 days for males, approx. 1 week for
females.
Mating cycle: 2-3 days.
Size: Males are 6-7 mm in length, and 6-10 mg
in weight. Females are 6-9 mm in length, 15-25
mg in weight
Body Chemistry: Almost a neutral 6.5 pH, but if
left on a car surface, acidity level can reach 4.25 pH.
Upside to lovebugs: larval stages by helping to
recycle decaying vegetative matter into organic
matter, according to Biology of the “Love-bug,” by
LA Hetrick 1970.
More profits and customers for self serve car
wash owners.
Downside to lovebugs: Attracted to highways,
lovebugs will splat all over cars, startling drivers.
They can also, according to Hetrick:
• Cause liquid-cooled engines to
overheat due to clogged radiators.
• Reduce visibility
• Etch automobile paint due
to acidic nature of bugs
Interesting Fact: Lovebugs do not bite or sting.
Rumor Has It: A rumor has been around for
decades that lovebugs are the result of a botched
genetic experiment at the University of Florida.
An Internet spam email going around stated:
“Love Bugs are actually man-made. Scientists
were genetically engineering females of a
species of insect that would mate with the male
mosquito, but be sterile and produce no offspring.
Unfortunately, they accidentally also created a
male Love Bug, and a pair somehow escaped into
the wild. Since the bugs had no natural predators,
their numbers quickly exploded into the millions.”
However, Snopes.com debunked this tall tale,
stating: “Love bugs are not the result of a genetic
cloning experiment gone wrong, nor were they
unwittingly loosed from a research facility charged
with studying exotic insects. They also weren’t
bio-engineered as a natural solution to the mosquito
problem. (Love bugs do not eat mosquitoes:
the adults do not eat at all, and larvae feed on decaying
plant material.) These overly amorous critters
are native to Central America; the best guess
as to how they came to these United States places
them as undiscovered stowaways who arrived by
ship in Galveston or New Orleans around 1920.”
FOR THE BIRDS
Yes…. We are going ‘there’
Okay, I will admit it, this research made me a
bit squeamish, but I know all of you can handle
it. And, while my degree in Journalism, and 20+
years of research and interviewing has prepared
me for a lot, I never in a million years thought
I would be writing about… bird poop. Yes, that’s
right, I am giving you all of the facts having to do
with bird excrement. Why is it white? What is up
with the blue blobs? The answers are below.
What’s up with
the whiteness?
It all has to do with the fact that birds do not
produce pure urine. According to MentalFloss,
birds’ digestive systems and don’t work like most
animals’. “Instead of pooping and peeing separately,
they basically do it all in one weird mess.
Their kidneys extract nitrogenous wastes from the
bloodstream like other animals’ do, but instead of
releasing it as urea dissolved in urine, birds excrete
it in the form of uric acid. It comes out as a white
sort of goo because of the biochemical reactions
that happen to process the waste so it can be safely
excreted with minimal water loss.”
What’s up with the dark blobs?
When there is red, blue, purple or green blobs in
the droppings, that is the actual poop. According to
beautyofbirds.com, it’s the only real solid part. As for
the different colors? It all has to do with the bird’s
diet. “Red pellets and strawberries produce a red colored
dropping. (This does not apply to the urine.)
Seed and green vegetables produce a green dropping.
(This does not apply to the urine either.) Blueberries
and blackberries produce black droppings.”
Are some cars targeted more
than others?
There have been lots of theories and studies done
on which cars attract more bird poop. Of course,
unless you’re Dr. Doolittle, you’ll never know this
answer. However, a little over a year ago, a done
by Halfords of the United Kingdom, revealed red
cars attract the most bird droppings. “Red vehicles
made up 18 percent of cars marked by birds, while
blue followed along in second place at 14 percent.
Green vehicles got off the easiest, making up just
one percent of those in the study. The sample
included 1,140 cars, though there’s no
indication as to the total number
of each car color in the group,”
autoblog.com reported.
The study also stated that
perhaps it has to do with
the fact that if a vehicle is
darker, the “deeper the reflection
and the more violent
the reaction.” Another
theory is that blue cars suffer
because the birds think they are
over a body of water. In that same report, autoblog
shared that Autoglym weighed in and revealed
that the damage to a vehicle’s surface has to a softening
of paint lacquer. “Damage to vehicle paintwork
arose not from the acid or alkali in bird feces,
but from paint lacquer softening and expanding to
form an uneven mold around the dropping which
produced a dull patch. Grainier textures from
seed-eating birds produced the most blemishes, so
pigeons are worse for motorists than seagulls.”
Or is a spider?
There is an actual spider called: The bird-dung
crab spider. And, yes, it looks exactly like bird
poop. To make sure you’re not about to detail a car
infested with this arachnid, make sure you know
what to look for.
According to newscientist.com, they mimic bird
droppings in color, shape, size and smell.
According to Joseph K.H. Koh of the Lee Kong
Chian Natural History Museum, The spider’s
body has a glossy surface that
gives it a ‘wet’ look of fresh feces.
The nodules on the body and
rough-edges of the legs further
reinforce the ‘shitty’ look – pardon
the rudeness. When the
spider moves, the illusion disintegrates.
The ‘walking poop’ no
longer looks like a piece of dropping,
especially with its legs spread
out,” Koh says.
52 • SPRING 2021