Fungus turning cicadas into sex-crazed zombies

Enkida

Full Cyborg
Location
Germany


OK, not really zombies. I mean even though they're missing their butts and genitalia, they're technically not yet dead. Still, I don't think the title can be click bait if the actual story delivers, and boy does it:

A fungus called Massospora, which can produce compounds of cathinone — an amphetamine — infects a small number of them and makes them lose control.

The fungus takes over their bodies, causing them to lose their lower abdomen and genitals. And it pushes their mating into hyperdrive.

[…] just before the cicadas rise from the ground, the spores of the fungus start to infect the bug. Once it's above ground and starts to shed its skin to become an adult, its butt falls off.

(…)

The insects have no idea what's happening. The fungus, however, is "pulling the strings" and making the cicadas want to mate with everyone.

… if someone doesn't attempt to make a horror zombie apocalypse fiction out of this infecting humans, I will lose ?gain?faith in humanity!
 
"This is stranger than fiction," Matt Kasson, an associate professor of forest pathology and mycology at West Virginia University, tells NPR's All Things Considered. "To have something that's being manipulated by a fungus, to be hypersexual and to have prolonged stamina and just mate like crazy."
Heh. Let's just say, it's not stranger than fiction. He just didn't run across the right fiction...
 
OK, not really zombies. I mean even though they're missing their butts and genitalia, they're technically not yet dead. Still, I don't think the title can be click bait if the actual story delivers, and boy does it:

It is nothing particularly new, though. We have known about those fungus that turn ants into zombies and make them climb to the top of the tallest grass before growing out of their skull for how long?
 
There are several parasites that replace the host's genitalia (or at least gonads) with their own.
 
I mean, can you prove we are not controlled by fire?

"Man has a love for fire. Napalm, white phosphorus, promethium, oil, gasoline, meltas, plasmas, firestorms, incendiaries, firepower, fireline, flamethrower, fireteam, firefighter, the flames of war, fire, fire, fire. What else could be said to have benefited as much from man as fire? What other element has been defended, nursed, tutored, fed, and loved more than fire? Our cities, our books, our people, our enemies, our friends, our dead, our living, our greatest works and most heinous feats; all of them, fed to the ever hungry flames, and there it is. Years of brilliant minds worked on that one. For warfare, for country, for humanity? No. We wanted to see what fire, raw unchained flame, could do."
- Inquisitor Madek, ''Love Can Bloom''
An appropriate quote I ran across somewhere...the more I think of it, the more I like the fire-as-parasite idea.
 
I just...we are discussing Fire Vampires now in a Cicada Zombie thread. Why doesn't anime ever have Fire Vampires vs Zombies? Yes I am aware of that one webcomic that is Vampires vs Zombies.
 


OK, not really zombies. I mean even though they're missing their butts and genitalia, they're technically not yet dead. Still, I don't think the title can be click bait if the actual story delivers, and boy does it:



… if someone doesn't attempt to make a horror zombie apocalypse fiction out of this infecting humans, I will lose ?gain?faith in humanity!

You are aware that zombie porn already exists right ?:)
 
This is horrifying and I don't have much to add except for a cool thing about 'zombie ants'.

Sometimes they get caught early and an ant will carry it as far away from the hive as they can before it blooms.

There are suicidal hero ants and somehow this fills me with joy. It's as if for one moment I have genuine admiration for this filthy exoskeletonized ducks.
 
I'll take "Unbelievable Yet True News Headlines" for 400.
 
This is my 3rd Cicada experience. Its insane how loud they can be, but with no sting and no bite they are kinda friendly guys! Not to mention its like their big party after 17 years in the salt (tree sap) mines, they deserve it!
 
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