Spanish Cicada – The Weird Side of the Internet

Spanish Cicada – The Weird Side of the Internet – by Liam Sweeny.

Okay, so it’s not news that two massive broods of cicadas have erupted across the U.S., a good portion of them in the South. They come once every seventeen years, so it’s a treat… for everyone that isn’t being bedeviled by them on the daily. They’re not forever, but they have an interesting little fact that is just bizarre enough for me to bring to you for your consideration.

Massospora Cicadina. It’s a fungal infection that is unique to cicadas. It is no ordinary “get some cream and make a follow-up appointment” infection. For starters, it takes over the mind of the little critters. It has a methamphetamine effect, and it make them apocalyptically horny, sex on sex on sex. Which is convenient to the fungus, which collects in sacs around their R-rated parts, which rip open during all the bow-chicka-bow-wow. The cicadas fly around after, releasing fresh spores like a saltshaker. Yes, that was how it was described.

Oh yeah, did I mention it makes males act like females? Males sing and females click their wings, but infected males start clicking their wings, which really screws with the planning of all Sadie Hawkins dances.

By the way, the cicadas are a part of the ecosystem, aside from being a pain in the ass to anyone with ears and gaps in their roofs. Fish feast on the things. Birds, basically any carnivore or omnivore gets a seven-course dinner when the cicadas bust out. But sadly, of course, all seven courses are cicadas.

This isn’t even the worst fungus in the insect world. There’s a fungus that drills itself into an ant’s brain and controls its movements, making it climb a plant so the fungi can get more play on its spores. If there’s going to be a zombie apocalypse, it’s probably going to be fungal, not viral. So the moral of the story is that if you don’t know what the mushroom is, don’t eat it.

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