"But infected cicadas, despite the fact that a third of their body has fallen off, continue to go about their activities like mating and flying as if nothing happened. "If one of our limbs were taken out or if our stomach was slashed open, we would probably be incapacitated," study co-author Matthew Kasson told CNN. Ants and moles Cicadas spend much of their lives in the underground as nymphs. These ominous creatures will consume everything that moves in their vicinity, provided they can kill them. "The bioactive compounds may manipulate the insect to stay awake and continue to transmit the pathogen for longer." Mantises Mantises are some of nature’s scariest ambush predators. "Essentially, the cicadas are luring others into becoming infected because their healthy counterparts are interested in mating," Lovett said. The study explained that the sneaky fungus manipulates male cicadas to move their wings so that they imitate females' mating signals. While infected cicadas can no longer successfully mate because their backsides are taken over by the fungus, the insects still try to get it on, which then transmits the fungus to healthy cicadas. The WVU study focused on the unusual sexual behavior of the infected cicadas. The National Parks Service lists Massospora, along with birds, racoons, opossums, frogs and other animals, as a common predator of Brood X cicadas. Here's a closer look at the Massospora–cicada infection cycle. If that's not horrifying enough, cicada expert John Lill of George Washington University described Massospora as a "death-zombie fungus" in the Evansville Courier & Press last week. The cicadas body parts "wear away like an eraser on a pencil," study co-author Brian Lovett said in a statement. The spores deposit even more fungal spores for the cicada to transmit to other cicadas like an STD. The spores start to infect the bugs before they emerge from underground and eat away at the cicada's rear, abdomen and even its genitals.
The way Massospora fungus spores attack cicadas sounds like something straight out of a horror film. The fungus Massospora has chemicals like the ones found in hallucinogenic mushrooms, according to a study by researchers from West Virginia University published in PLOS Pathogens in 2020. To succeed in procreating, they'll need to avoid getting devoured by animals, but some may also have to battle a bizarre parasitic fungus that controls their minds and forces them to mate like mad to infect their fellow insects. The much-awaited cicadas of Brood X are now emerging across the eastern US for a massive mating frenzy 17 years in the making.
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