Fungal parasites
Massospora cicadina not only coexists with and transforms its host’s body, but also bends the host’s will to its purposes, causing death, destruction, and spreading its spores.
This may seem like demonic possession, but scientists believe that such a phenomenon
Entomophthora fungi Derived from the ancient Greek words meaning “insect” and “destruction,” this type of fungus destroys the structure and behavior of its host for its own purposes. Modification of host phenotype.
While Entomophthorales fungi primarily kill their hosts in order to disperse spores, Massospora cicadina keeps its host alive.
There is
2 types Stages of Massospora cicadina infection. First-stage infected cicadas produce spores capable of infecting other adult cicadas. Second-stage infected cicadas lay fungal traps for the next generation of cicadas, which emerge from the soil about 13-17 years later.
Up to 10% of the 2013 and 2017 generations “Zombie insectsThis year’s Semi-Information Periodicals from the Biodiversity Research Collection at the University of Connecticut Website This suggests that for the first time since 2015, the offspring of the 13-year-old will emerge in the same year as the offspring of the 17-year-old.
a
study A study published in the peer-reviewed Nature journal Scientific Reports noted that infection “causes swelling and loss of the distal abdomen, including the genitalia, in both sexes, which then ruptures, exposing and spreading infectious spores.”
One of the study’s authors, Dr. John Cooley, an associate professor of ecology and evolutionary biology at the University of Connecticut in Hartford, recently Said CNN reports that when it comes to this fungal parasite, “the truth is, science fiction”
The infected cicada’s genitals and buttocks fall off and are replaced by swellings of white fungal masses.
“It looks like a gumdrop that was dropped into the chalk dust has stuck to its back,” Matt Cusson, an associate professor of mycology and forest pathology at West Virginia University, told CNN.
Some scientists have observed that first-stage infected cicadas fly less, instead dragging their spore-spreading abdomens around while searching for potential prey while spreading spores. Second-stage infected cicadas apparently spend more time flying around, bombarding spores from their rotting abdomens.
During the first stage of infection, both men and women appear to develop an excessive sexual desire to fulfill the parasite’s goals.
“So when they get separated, what do you think happens? They rip.”
Infected males will attempt to cover as many victims as possible by engaging in wing-flapping signaling behaviors (usually only seen in sexually receptive female cicadas) to trick other males into thinking they are females eager to mate. By the time the male victims realize their mates are not as advertised, it is often too late, as spores can spread easily over close ranges.
Female cicadas are apparently unable to identify and avoid infected males, putting them at risk too.
Cooley’s research indicates that “Massospora functions, at least in part, as a sexually transmitted disease, and the novel behaviors of infected males are a complex manipulation the fungus performs for its own benefit.”
It’s not just deception that spreads the infection.
“Periodic cicadas have genitalia that are intertwined, so can you imagine what happens when the genitalia separate? They tear, and you end up with a cicada walking around with someone else’s genitalia still attached,” Cooley said, “and the infected cicada explodes.”
Once they “burst,” the infected cicadas become what Casson and his colleagues call the “salt shaker of death.”
They fly around, shedding brown spores that could infect the next generation.
Casson and other scientists Decided Infected cicadas are likely able to keep moving and mating despite being injured because the fungus produces psychoactive compounds during infection: cathinone, a type of amphetamine, and psilocybin, a hallucinogen found in the infected cicadas’ magic mushrooms.
But Cooley said it’s uncertain whether such drugs would affect insects in the same way they would affect vertebrates.
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