Bug swarms near Australia’s Gold Coast mystify scientists

March 26, 2011 – AUSTRALIA - Ken Tomkins, 61, was hospitalized after skidding his bicycle into a mound of dead bugs and shattering his hip, collarbone and ribs, the Gold Coast Bulletin reports. Tomkins said he noticed the slick as he rode along The Esplanade at Surfers Paradise, but initially thought it was water or leaves. He will be bedridden for six weeks after hitting the bugs, which were piled to the edge of the road by a council street sweeper, at about 25kph. The water beetle invasion is a never-before-seen phenomenon that has stumped local scientists. The incident was captured on amateur YouTube footage showing the large black beetles swarming around lights and dropping to the footpath in Surfers Paradise. Entomologist Professor Clyde Wild from Queensland’s Griffith University said he had no definitive explanation for why the beetles had turned up in such large numbers at the beach side holiday hot spot. “I’ve never seen swarms of these like this before, why they are at the beach front escapes any explanation I can think of,” Wild said. ”You might see two or three on any given night – this is literally thousands.” –Herald Sun

11 Responses to Bug swarms near Australia’s Gold Coast mystify scientists

Jon says:

March 26, 2011 at 5:08 pm

Think they are running from something?

- The Extinction Protocol says:
  
  March 26, 2011 at 5:23 pm
  
  One hypothesis says the rain caused a population explosion but since it’s on the east coast of Australia near water —-that’s doubtful. We just hope they’re not moving away from neighboring New Zealand.
  
  - Sachelle says:
    
    March 26, 2011 at 9:53 pm
    
    Yes it’s true East Australia is near water but most of the water is obviously salt water. I did a bit of research after receiving the email, and they breed, and leave their larvae in water, since there was so much fresh water it’s really not hard to conclude that more bugs would mate and more larvae survive. I’m not saying it’s not a lot of bugs because it clearly is but there was also a lot of water in places where there hasn’t been before and the flooding lasted for such along time, not just the flood broadcast all over the world, but for weeks before that there was flooding slightly further inland off and on, in fact it’s still flooding in areas there. To me it seems an obvious connection. I enjoy getting you emails though, nice to be aware, thanks.
  - Implosion says:
    
    March 26, 2011 at 10:41 pm
    
    I think, it has to do with earthchanges, maybe there is coming another earthquake.
    
    Animals are behaving rare last months. ( since januari )
- Melissa says:
  
  March 27, 2011 at 8:00 pm
  
  HA,HA thankyou! That was my first thought, I also felt as if the algae of f the British and Irish Coasts were looking for a safe place to hide. In all seriousness, I so deeply feel the horror, fear and pain that all other innocent life on this planet has experienced, in great part, due to our arrogance toward and ignorance of the web of life. The destruction to aquatic life as the nuclear disaster in Japan spreads into the sea will be beyond anyone’s wildest fears and the poor sea creatures have no way of escaping onto land. They can not be evacuated as the surviving Japanese people can. My prayers go out to all life struggling to survive at this historic time!
  
Blaze says:

March 26, 2011 at 5:37 pm

Strange indeed!

Janice says:

March 26, 2011 at 9:53 pm

Lake Erie has “June Bug” hatches that give every surface a kind of furry winged coating near evening street or house lights. It’s wild.

Sharon says:

March 27, 2011 at 4:10 am

Lake Erie has “May Flies”, not June bugs…although the May Flies do seem most abundant in June for some reason. They do make the streets slick with dead insect bodies.

Sandra says:

March 28, 2011 at 1:50 am

It’s one thing that there was a surplus of still water to hatch the larvae, but why are they all dead?

lydia says:

March 28, 2011 at 6:34 pm

Insects are really very strong species and they can survive cataclims and anything, I am sure they can survive even nuclear radiation because they can adapt their organism very quickly to survive. Maybe those beetle are lost, they have lost their sense of orientation? Or maybe they are triyng to tell us something that we dont understand. Who knows? We live our lives without thinking about insects as they were not there and we forget that without insects life on the planet would not be possible. So we depend on them to our survive. So now they are there, in big number like a plague. Very strange yes indeed!

Susie says:

March 29, 2011 at 10:05 am

I was walking along Surfers promenade the morning after the swarms attacked the place and can tell you the smell was awful. All those dead bettles smelt like a mixture of pus, dead fish and paint stripper!!! The smell got right up your nose and stayed there for a long time – quite disgusting!