A new study of vanity license plates (custom plates) in Iowa showed that people use a lot of insect-related names for their custom license plates. There were 608 license plates with the word “bug” in them, 336 with the word “bee”, 294 with “ant”, 265 with “fly”, and many other insect names. Included are fun names like ABUG8ME, I8ABUG, BUGNYOU, and N2BUGS. (If you can’t figure these out, the answers are below.)
There was also a yellow and black Chevrolet Camaro with BMBULBE on the license plate, named after the Autobot scout known as ‘Bumblebee’ in the Transformer movies. Plus, BEEMEUP, for a Star Trek fan, and a strange license plate, FLYNPIG.
(Answers: ‘a bug ate me’, ‘I ate a bug’, ‘bugging you’, and ‘into bugs’.)
Black Portuguese millipedes are being blamed for a recent rear-end train crash in Australia. The creatures can become so numerous at times, that when squished on the tracks by a train, they turn into a slippery mess that makes it difficult to stop the train. Six passengers were treated for neck injuries. A similar millipede-caused train wreck happened in 2009.
Vicious Asian giant hornets have killed at least 42 people in China this year, and sent another 1,600 people to hospitals for treatment.
It is not known why there have been so many attacks this year, except that the fall weather has been warmer and drier than normal, so colonies became larger than usual.