Great News About The Upcoming Cicada Infestation: Those Sick Fucks Produce The Same Type of Hallucinogens As One of Our Favorite Drugs
Cicadas are a sex-crazed species. Males sing the song of summer at the same volume as a lawnmower to attract mates, as residents of the mid-Atlantic and midwestern United States will experience this year with the emergence of Brood X.
But a fungus called Massospora can take it up a notch, Karen Zamora reports for NPR. This white, chalky fungus infects about five percent of cicadas. It takes over their bodies and produces cathinone, an amphetamine, that makes the bugs mate even more. Massospora sticks out of the bug's back instead of genitals, so every time the infected bug attempts to mate is an opportunity for the fungus to spread.
Massospora fungus lurks in the soil until the cicadas emerge from the ground, Kasson tells Coral Murphy Marcos at the Guardian. When the cicada nymphs emerge from underground, some ingest the fungus, and the fungus is activated by a hormone from the cicada. Once inside, the Massospora consumes the inside of the cicada and grows until it cracks through the bug’s exoskeleton. Their genitals fall off and get replaced by a big white ball of spores.
I dont know if youve heard about it, but this year is supposed to be one of the worst infestations of cicadas of all time. Them shits are supposed to completely blanket parts of the country.
When I first caught wind of this, I shared the information with a couple of my pals and close family members. When they heard about the sheer number, many people were talking of suicide and or self-immolation. Sad. Here's what the science is saying.
In most years, long-lived periodical cicadas thrum through the region, but a quirk of timing means these insects have been sparse since 2021. This year, though, they’re roaring back.
That’s because 2024 will see two separate batches of periodical cicadas emerge en masse, spread across much of the eastern half of the U.S. These insects crawl out of the ground once every 13 or 17 years for a rush of mating and egg-laying until all the adults die, and the next generation is tucked underground until their own teenage years.
Everybody in the Chicago area is waiting for full-blown Spring. It'll be nice to walk around in the sunshine with our pups until the soil temp reaches 64 degrees. It'll be nice to sit in front of our houses and enjoy an adult beverage or two until the soil temp reaches 64 degrees. But once that sunny afternoon shifts to the cooler evening as the sun sets, those fuckers will begin coming out of the ground, falling from trees, and just appearing straight up outta no where. It will be biblical when the temp reaches 64 degrees. My friends, 64-degree soil is our enemy… right?
When it's 64 degrees, the cicadas will then be ready to fuck with their crazy fungus dicks that are sticking out of their backs just waiting for some other unexpecting cicada to hop on that infected dick like Meghan The Stallion. WAP. They will be riding high and getting high off the fungus sex. Next thing you know, their bodies are getting pumped with this fungus that was waiting for them.
Different species of cicadas get different drug-laced responses from Massospora infections. While periodical cicadas—like the dark brown, red-eyed Brood X—get a boost from the stimulant cathinone, annual cicadas wind up full of psilocybin, the same chemical found in psychedelic mushrooms.
Although some people eat healthy cicadas, experts do not recommend eating the cicadas for the fungus and its drugs.
The only reason expects would say this is because they know that these cicadas will get you fucked up. Now, I know there's much ballyhoo about global elites forcing us to drink roach milk or cricket crackers. I'm not into that. But, if I can get the mushroom effect by just boiling up some cicada juice, brother, sign me up. I'll hydrate with that all summer.
I will eat the infected ass of those cicadas so fast it'll make your head spin like you're on mushrooms.
Shoutout to the trillion of cicadas coming for being the plug. Incredible.