love bug
Back when I used to live in Texas, each spring I would be subjected to two assaults. The first was by allergies, which I’d experienced before when living in more temperate climes, but which are especially bad in the Texas spring when everything is in bloom. The other was by swarms of Plecia nearctica, commonly known as the love bug. They are so called because they is most commonly seen when copulating, which is pretty much continuously during their short lifespans, appearing as two-headed bugs floating lazily through the air. They are also known as honeymoon flies, fuck bugs, and telephone bugs. This last name is a bit mysterious but is perhaps because, with their black color, they bear a vague resemblance to an old-time telephone.
Love bugs are common in Texas and all along the Gulf Coast of the United States. Originally from Central America, they were first recorded in the United States in 1911 and have been moving northward, now found as far north as North Carolina. They are mostly harmless. They don’t bite and are really only a nuisance because they tend to swarm, blackening car hoods and windshields, although their body chemistry is acidic and can damage the paint on older cars if not cleaned off quickly. The name love bug is also applied to other species that exhibit the same mating behavior, such as the Plecia longiforceps, originally native to the East Asian subtropics but which has been moving northward in recent years due to climate change, and annual swarms are now plaguing Seoul, Korea.
The Oxford English Dictionary (OED) has a citation from 1937, but when viewed in context it’s not clear what insect is being referred to, or even if it is an insect at all. The article, about a Nebraska entomologist, that appears in the 25 July 1937 edition of the Lincoln, Nebraska Sunday Journal and Star reads:
There’s a popular song that goes like this: “The love bug will get you if you don’t watch out.”
It is not the love-bug though that is worrying the Nebraska farmer these days. He can put up with love-bugs, kissing-bugs and lady-bird beetles from spring until frost and from sun up until the chores are all done, but there are hundreds of other kinds, large and small, that make him fret at night and cuss during the day.
The first instance of love bug in the piece is clearly a reference to the metaphorical source of erotic infatuation. The second mention of love-bug is likely also metaphorical, and the third may refer to an actual insect, but if so it’s not clear which species.
The Dictionary of American Regional English records uses of love bug referring to Plecia nearctica from 1968 in north-central Florida and southeast Louisiana. The Florida description reads:
Love bugs—black-and-orange insects which mate in late August through September. They are seen coupled in thick swarms for as long as three weeks.
And Louisiana:
Love bug—a little black-and-orange insect about three-eighths of an inch long. They mate at certain times of the year, smearing windshields and covering pedestrians. You never see one separately; they are always coupled.
That metaphorical meaning of love bug is much older. But it seems this love bug was originally envisioned as a bacterium rather than an insect. There is this clearly tongue-in-cheek description of pathogen in Georgia’s Macon Telegraph and Messenger of 2 August 1882:
The Love Bug.
San Francisco Post
A California physician who discovered a new disease—love madness—has been experimenting with the persons afflicted therewith, and has produced the “love parasite,” or bacillus microccus. This he cultivated up to the twentieth generation, and with the parasites of that generation he inoculated a number of subjects. The inoculation was invariably successful, symptoms of the disease appearing a very short time after the operation. A bachelor, aged 50 years, on the first day after inoculation, had his whiskers dyed, ordered a suit of new clothes and a set of false teeth, bought a top buggy, a bottle of hair restorer, a diamond ring and a guitar, and began reading Byron’s poems. The inoculation produced symptoms of the same nature in a young lady of 45. She spent $5 at a drug store for cosmetics, sang “Empty is the Cradle,” sent out invitations for a party, and complained that the Chico young men do not go into society. An inoculated youth of 17, employed in a country store, did up a gallon of molasses in a paper bag, but [sic] the cat in the butter tub and threw some fresh butter of the window. Finally he sat in a basket of eggs while looking at the photograph of a pretty girl and was discharged for his carelessness. The Chico doctor is still experimenting, and will soon lay lay the results of his observations before the medical world.
(I can’t find any records for the San Francisco Post.)
And here is one that is a metaphorical insect from the Indianapolis Star of 29 June 1907:
LOVE BUG STINGS AGED MAN FOR FIFTH TIME
Senile Bridegroom Proudly Makes Unique and Surprising Announcement of Coming Marriage to His Friend.
CHICAGO, June 28.—“Charlie, my son, I have been stung by the love bug the fifth time.” This was the announcement made today by Ossian Guthrie, 81 years old, of his marriage next Monday night to Mrs. Elizabeth F. Flower, 71 years old, 122 East Forty-second Place.
Sources:
Bond, George. “Prof. D. B. Whelan Traps Insects, Studies distribution, and Determines Infestations.” Sunday Journal and Star (Lincoln, Nebraska), 25 July 1937, C-D—Two/1. NewspaperArchive.com.
Dictionary of American Regional English, 2013, s. v. love bug n, honeymoon fly n, fuck bug n, telephone bug n.
“The Love Bug.” Macon Telegraph and Messenger (Georgia), 2 August 1882, 2/5. Readex: America’s Historical Newspapers.
“Love Bug Stings Aged Man for Fifth Time.” Indianapolis Star, 19 June 1907, 1/4. ProQuest Historical Newspapers.
Myung-hee Yi, et al. “Microbiome of Lovebug (Plecia longiforceps) in Seoul, South Korea.” Microbiology Spectrum, 12.7, July 2024, 1–10. DOI: 10.1128/spectrum.03809-23. National Library of Medicine: PubMed Central.
Oxford English Dictionary, third edition, 2008, s.v. love bug, n.
Rashid, Raphael. “Seoul Wrestles with How to Handing Invasion of ‘Lovebugs.’” Guardian, 30 June 2025.
Photo credit: Unknown photographer, 2005. Wikimedia Commons. Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license.
