BLACKSBURG, Va. – If you’ve been outside recently, you may have noticed an abnormal amount of June bugs flying around.
We reached out to the Virginia Tech Insect Identification Lab and learned that there has actually been an uptick this year.
Most in our area have been a variety of three species, the Japanese, Green, and Brown June Beetle.
While they can be loud, they are harmless to humans, often seen flying around front porches near outdoor lighting.
“The main one you are seeing right now is the Green June Beetle,” said Eric Day, an entomologist at Virginia Tech. “It ties into kind of the local rain. We’ve had some dry conditions as of late. We get a good little rainfall in localized places and then we get a big emergence of these June beetles coming out.”
Another big factor is the heat, along with the weather from the previous year. He said if it was dry, the population will be smaller.