It is hard to visualize what 10 million looks like.
But I saw it this morning.
It is that time of year in Florida, the lovebugs are everywhere. Those pesky little, acid-rich, car paint-destroying, sex maniacs. For those of you who have not experienced it , we are swarmed down here in Florida twice a year in numbers so huge it is incomprehensible. They only live 3 – 4 days, but they maintain huge numbers for almost a month. When 10 million die another 10 million are born.
How many are there really? No one is sure.
Riding my bike on the beach this morning, there were an incredible amount of dead lovebugs painted in wave-like patterns on the beach sand, left high on the beach from the ocean’s tide.
I rode my bike from Coconuts to the Jetty which is 7 miles. The wave of dead bugs ran the entire stretch of the beach and the concentration of bugs was pretty consistent the entire way.
So I stopped and counted them.
There were between 250 and 300 bugs for every 12 inches of beach.
275 bugs per foot X 5280 feet per mile X 7 miles =
10 Millions bugs.
How many lovebugs do you think there are in the entire state of Florida?
I guess it would suck if we lived only 3 – 4 days on average, so can you blame them for how they spend there time?