Subject: Love bug?
Location: Brevard County Florida
April 26, 2017 12:45 pm
I live in Florida and we usually get a ton of love bugs around this time of the year but instead of your typical black bodied bug with a red head they’re all black? Is this a love bug? I have yet to see a red headed love bug anywhere.
Signature: Stephanie

March Fly

Dear Stephanie,
This is an excellent question.  The image you submitted is of a March Fly in the family Bibionidae and the small eyes indicate it is a female.  Lovebugs are members of the genus Plecia within the family Bibionidae.  So all Lovebugs are March Flies, but not all March Flies are Lovebugs.  As you stated, Lovebugs have red heads.  You may read more about March Flies on BugGuide where it states:  “Adults emerge synchronously in huge numbers and often form dense mating aggregations. Males form loose ‘swarms’ and copulate immediately with females as they emerge from the soil. After mating, female bibionines dig a small chamber in the soil with their fossorial fore tibiae, lay eggs, and die within the chamber (Plecia lay eggs on the soil surface). Adults are short-lived (3-7 days).”

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Subject: Black, red-headed beetle.
Location: Coastal Connecticut, USA
October 2, 2016 12:29 pm
Please help me identify these little chaps. Our flowering plants are full of them. They seem to be browsing on the flowers, rather than eating the leaves (at least, so far).
Signature: Doug

March Flies

Dear Doug,
These are not Beetles.  They are March Flies in the family Bibionidae, and we believe they may be female Bibio longipes, a species according to BugGuide that is a  “fall-flying species. Females are distinguished by their reddish color.”

March Fly

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Subject: Tiny Robber Fly?
Location: Andover, NJ
May 21, 2016 2:17 pm
I found several of these small (1/3 to 1/2 inch) flies which look like some sort of robber fly. I’ve just never seen a robber fly this small, so wondering if it is something else entirely. I’m in the far northern corner of NJ in a wooded area. These were found just at the edge of a shrubby area near the woods.
Any help you can give me will be much appreciated!
Signature: Deborah Bifulco

Male March Fly

Dear Deborah,
This is not a Robber Fly.  It is a March Fly in the family Bibionidae, and it can be identified as a male because of its large eyes.  The eyes of the females are much smaller as you can see in this image of a pair of mating March Flies.  We believe your individual may be Bibio albipennis based on this BugGuide image.

Male March Fly

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Subject: Bee or ant ?
Location: Argentina
April 14, 2016 9:32 am
hello, i can’t see if this bugs are ants with wings or bees
Signature: Mario

Lovebugs

Dear Mario,
These are neither ants nor bees, but rather, they are flies.  More specifically, they are March Flies and we believe they are in the genus Plecia whose members are commonly called Lovebugs because they appear in large swarms that contain numerous mating pairs.  More on Lovebugs can be found on BugGuide and on University of Florida Entomology site.

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