Those Billions, Maybe Trillions of Cicadas In The Process Of Invading The East Coast? A Bunch Of Them Have A Mind-Controlling Fungus That Turns Them Into Sex-Crazed "Zombies" After Making Their Dicks and Butts Fall Off
Shutterstock Images.Brood X contains billions — maybe trillions — of cicadas, and they are emerging after 17 years underground. They will shake up parts of the eastern United States during a raucous few weeks as full-fledged adults. Then, just as suddenly, they will die. Here’s a look at the short but eventful adult life of a Brood X cicada. nyt
Old news: one trillion cicadas are either coming to a lawn near you very, very soon — or they're already there. Posted up, stretching, waiting to molt that one last layer to become an adult and begin the body count.
New news: …some of them have a fungus.
"Like athlete's foot you mean?"
I don't mean that no.
Yellow-white fungus grows inside the cicadas, filling their insides and pushing out against their abdomens. One by one, the rings that compose the back halves of their bodies slough off and fall to the ground. Driven by a chemical compound in the fungus — and now lacking butts and genitals — the bugs try to mate like crazy.
Some researchers call these infected cicadas “flying salt shakers of death.” And they’re lurking among Brood X.
When you find out that weird pain in your stomach you keep meaning to get checked out is a mind-controlling zombie-creating fungus that's eating your dick and butt.
MANDEL NGAN. Getty Images.
MANDEL NGAN. Getty Images.If you recall, we learned about Zombie cicadas last summer, right here on Barstool. West Virginia was finding these mind-controlled hornballs all over the place, buttless and dickless and stoned out of their god damn minds.
Literally.
Humans aren't the only ones susceptible to the psychedelic chemicals found in magic mushrooms. "Zombie cicadas" — under the influence of a parasitic fungus — have reemerged in West Virginia to infect their friends, and now scientists have a better understanding of how it happens.
"A zombie army."
Unlike other fungal pathogens, the fungus Massospora cicadina doesn’t kill the insects on which it grows. Instead, it forces the cicadas to act in ways that promote the fungus’s spread.
Researchers from West Virginia University recently saw the return of these bizarre creatures, which are infected with a fungus called Massospora. According to a study published in the journal PLOS Pathogens, the fungus manipulates the insects to unknowingly infect other cicadas, rapidly transmitting the disease to create a zombie army of sorts.
“That’s what people can immediately recognize as, ‘This is a zombie, this is no longer a normal cicada. something strange is happening here,’ ” said Brian Lovett, a postdoctoral researcher at West Virginia University who co-wrote a 2020 study about the fungus.
Now, 1 year later and facing the cicada apocalypse, we can expect around 10% of the TRILLION to be a Fungus Zombie version.
Which really has no effect on you or your life at all, it's just wild there's actually a fungus that steals your dick and butt.
Cicada Life:
It's quite simply…if not THE worst life out of all creatures on Earth, definitely a bottom 3. Definitely.
Just to refresh your memory on what cicada life is all about — they have literally one thing to look forward to in their entire life, and it's that they get to fuck right before they die. That's it. They "grow up" in the cold dark dirt underground curled up drinking plant juice through their straw mouth for 17 years. SEVENTEEN. After SEVENTEEN YEARS of doing nothing but drinking plants in the dark, a big cicada alarm goes off or something and it's time for their big adventure: up to The World to molt, grow wings, fuck and die.
(We stan a cicada who always gets consent)
That's it. Once he comes, they kiss goodbye and part ways: he goes to die, while she gets back in bed to finish herself off I hope plants the 600 babies or so he just knocked her up with in different spots, then also dies.
Now imagine not getting your ONE life highlight? Living THAT life only without the nut? And not because you like, missed the bus — you miss it because you're watching your DICK AND BUTT FALL OFF as some disgusting fungus bursts through where your little super horny bug dick should be…
"like an eraser on a pencil."
Lovett described the process as wearing "away like an eraser on a pencil." the fungi are similar to rabies — both "enlist living insects to do their bidding," researchers said — in a process called active host transmission, which is a form of "biological puppetry."
"Since we are also animals like insects, we like to think we have complete control over our decisions and we take our free will for granted," Lovett said. "But when these pathogens infect cicadas, it's very clear that the pathogen is pulling the behavioral levers of the cicada to cause it to do things which are not in the interest of the cicada but is very much in the interest of the pathogen."
If you take one thing from this story, remember to have a little perspective and maybe even practice some gratitude today. Don't let these cicadas dry hump tree bark until they die in vain. Every time you touch your dick or butt or balls or any combination of the 4, forget about how long it's been since anyone has seen them and be grateful it's not getting eaten from the inside out by a fungus. Then thank the little zombie cicadas for it.