Cicadas face horrifying ‘death-zombie fungus’ that eats away at their butts – CNET [CNET]

The much-awaited Brood X cicadas are now emerging across the eastern US for a massive mating frenzy 17 years in the making. To succeed in their procreation efforts, they’ll need to avoid getting devoured by animals, but they may also have to battle a strange parasitic fungus that controls their minds and forces them to mate like mad to infect other insects.

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.

The way Massospora fungus spores attack cicadas sounds like a horror film. The spores eat away at the cicada’s rear, abdomen and even its genitals, depositing even more fungal spores for the cicada to transmit to other cicadas like an STD. 

The cicadas body parts “wear away like an eraser on a pencil,” study co-author Brian Lovett said in a statement. 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.

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Other fungus parasites also control their insect hosts as if they were zombies. “Zombie ant fungus” (Ophiocordyceps unilateralis) is a parasite mostly found in tropical forests. It grows inside the ant’s body until it eventually pierces through the ant’s head and releases fungal spores to infect more ants. 

Cicadas may not be alone in the animal kingdom when it comes to nature’s version of The Walking Dead, but at least Brood X is expected to emerge in massive enough numbers to insure its survival as a group. As the NPS says, “There are more cicadas than all the combined predators can eat.”