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Thursday, March 28, 2024

Love bugs are stuck to each other like a decades-old rumor has clung on UF’s reputation.

Rumor has it that UF created love bugs as a failed product for a mosquito control experiment, said UF entomology professor Philip Koehler.

But it’s not true.

Love bugs were first found in Florida in 1949, so their existence can’t be credited to UF or any other body of research, Koehler said.

“I first heard the rumor 30 years ago,” Koehler said. “I’m surprised it’s still around.”

Love bugs originated in Mexico and Central America, said UF entomology professor Norman Leppla. The bugs traveled across the Gulf states in the 1950s before spreading throughout Florida and then making their way to Georgia and even South Carolina.

It is unknown who started the rumor or how it spread, Leppla said.

“It’s a curious folklore that’s developed with no basis whatsoever in any kind of truth,” Leppla said. “Somebody just thought it up, and it spread.”

UF has not intervened in the population control of love bugs since the late 1960’s, when a research project was funded to study a means of controlling the love bug population due to their effect on vehicles, Koehler said. An enzyme in the body of the insect causes damage to the paint on cars, and since they are attracted to roadways, they are largely hit by cars.

The research that took place on campus, along with the insect’s relation to mosquitoes, is likely what caused the misconception, Koehler said.

Nicholas Gonzalez, a 19-year-old UF industrial engineering sophomore, said he swats the pesky love bugs whether he’s on his way out to eat or in the doorway to his apartment. He was surprised to hear the rumor wasn’t true.

“I tend to believe that rumors like these are generally made up by people in an attempt to look cool, but I find something absurd like that very hard to believe,” Gonzalez said.

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