If your windshield and front bumper suddenly look worse than they have in years, you are not imagining it. Lovebugs have surged back across Florida this spring after several lean seasons, blanketing highways, parking lots and windshields from Titusville through most of Central Florida.

If you are new to the area, here’s the skinny: the insects run on a familiar schedule, peaking twice a year: once in late April and May, and again in late August and September. They pretty much can’t be avoided if you drive, and they’ll send you to the car wash a few times a week if you are on the road often.

Spring of 2026 Is Seeing More Lovebugs Than Usual

What is different in 2026 is the volume. After years of noticeably lighter swarms, this season’s numbers are running well above recent memory. Lovebugs love highways and car exhaust, and they like to congregate near highways and waterways. Cars splatter them, and they stick to everything: the grille, the windshield, the headlights, you name it. Using your car’s windshield wipers to remove them is a fool’s errand because lovebugs leave behind a sticky slime that smears, making it even harder to see out of the car while driving.

“There’s no doubt they’re higher,” Norman Leppla, a University of Florida professor and longtime lovebug expert, told WLRN, noting the insects had been declining for the past three or four years before this season’s rebound. He was candid about the limits of what anyone actually knows: the insects aren’t formally monitored, so there is no hard population data, and the comeback was, in his words, a surprise to most everybody.

The rebound is not perfectly uniform. Earlier in May, UF/IFAS noted that Florida’s worst drought in more than two decades had actually suppressed swarms in some areas, particularly along the I-10 and I-75 corridor, because lovebug larvae depend on soil moisture to develop. The takeaway: conditions earlier in the insects’ life cycle, not the weather on any given day, drive how heavy a season turns out to be.

Messy But Harmless

Another “if you’re new here” fun fact: Lovebugs are harmless. UF/IFAS experts stress that lovebugs do not bite, sting, spread disease or poison anything. They’re “just” a nuisance, full stop. As Leppla told ClickOrlando, the only people who really suffer are “the car wash people.” Many of us might argue with that, because this has to be one of the most profitable times of the year for car wash operators.

The one legitimate gripe about lovebugs is what they can do to your paint job. The acids in a lovebug’s body can etch a vehicle’s clear coat if left to bake in the Florida sun, and down the line, that’s going to degrade the paint and the overall look of your vehicle. If your car is splattered with lovebug carcasses, the best thing to do is to hit a car wash, or if you are so inclined, wash your vehicle yourself taking extra care to get all the little buggers off your paint.

Fortunately, the semi-annual wave of lovebugs is short-lived. Adult lovebugs only live a few days, just long enough to mate and lay eggs, and the current spring surge is expected to taper off soon. Sometime later this year the cycle starts all over again in late summer. It’s just another part of living in Florida.

Author: Charles Boyer

NASA kid from Cocoa Beach, FL, born of Project Apollo parents and family. I’m a writer and photographer sharing the story of spaceflight from the Eastern Range here in Florida.