In recent days, many places in the eastern United States have issued warnings that 17-year cicadas are about to erupt, and more than 30 billion cicadas may break ground after 17 years of dormancy underground and spend a short but "brilliant" life on the ground!
But while these 17-year cicadas are quietly lurking underground, there is a hidden enemy who is also waiting for the opportunity, Massospora cicadina is a fungus for the 17-year-old cicada, which is a rather terrible fungus, and its parasitic process is even better than the zombies in Resident Evil!
Brood X with Martensporidium
A paper published in October 2019 in Fungal Ecology said that in previous studies, a 17-year-old cicada with a white powdery abdomen was found, they are more active than normal cicadas, seem to have endless potential, and try to mate with more cicadas, of course, mating This behavior is useless for cicadas whose abdomen has turned white powdery, but still enjoy it!
In the words of West Virginia University researcher Kasson and his colleagues, the cicada seems to be "drugged", and the "drug" that makes the cicada fly and mate wildly may come from this mysterious powdery substance in the abdomen! After obtaining these substances, the researchers found that this is a Masobora fungus!
The cicada infected with this fungus no longer distinguishes the sex of the mating object, but indiscriminately rushes up to a meal xx, and the purpose is really the Masobola fungus wants to spread more cicadas, and then let them spread to each other, what a terrible fungus!
Why is the Masopola fungus so "powerful"?
Researchers at West Virginia University found traces of amphetamine and psychedelics in cicadas infected with the Masopola fungus, which surprised the researchers, because these are two famous psychotropic drugs that can somehow interact with natural cicada hormones to change the habits of the annual cicada, but how to change the process of cicadas, scientists are still not clear!
But they found that once the anniversary cicada was infected with this Masopola fungus, and multiplied to the abdomen has been "bleached", a random shake may drop millions of fungal spores, the anniversary cicada began to stop eating and resting, began to sleeplessly looking for mating objects, in order to let more anniversary cicadas infect the spores of this Masobora fungus!
Just like the spread of viruses in human society, their transmission method is somewhat similar to the "chain reaction" in the explosion of nuclear bombs, once it begins to grow out of control, it is an exponential growth, and its terrible nature is that infected cicadas take the initiative to go out to become a fungal bomber, and everywhere they go, they are not spared!
How to solve the chain of transmission of this fungal infection? There is no doubt that isolation is the best choice, but this simple truth anniversary cicada will not understand, just like to say that the new crown virus should be isolated to Westerners, they will think that you are crazy, affect their free interaction, hinder the expression of "free thought", this is an "anti-human" behavior, so the Western isolation is difficult to achieve, the anniversary cicada is also, but fortunately they will soon enter the breeding period, and then spread again when the next wave of 17-year cicadas appears.
17 years of infection of cicadas with Maso bora fungus
A few days ago, the eastern United States issued a warning that in 17 years, cicadas will attack, there will be cicadas crawling out of the ground, and then feathering and mating process, and cicadas will be the most powerful noise in the hot summer, because cicadas can emit nearly 100 decibels of noise, and endlessly, irritable to the point that you want to go crazy!
There are two kinds of anniversary cicadas, one is the 13-year-old cicada, the other is the 17-year-old cicada, the two populations add up to a total of 15 cicadas, the most recently ravaged cicada in the United States is Brood Xinsects, which is characterized by blood red eyes, which is also the origin of their name Brood Xinsects, which is roughly in Illinois, Michigan, New York and Georgia.
One of the most famous anniversary cicadas in history was in 1902, when the sound of cicadas almost drowned out the voice of President Roosevelt, who was speaking at the time.
The life of the anniversary cicada
They will live underground for 13 or 17 years, and then drill out at the same time, feathering and mating to spawning and dying in 4-6 weeks, while the Masobora fungus may infect cicadas in two ways, one may be latent for 13 or 17 years, and the other is infected during the process of climbing out of the ground to feather.
If it's the former, the fungi will be able to acquire the pheromones of cicadas that are about to climb off the ground, indicating that there is a bridge of communication between the two, while the latter may be an accidental infection when sucking up plant sap.
Some friends are worried that this fungus may infect humans, but this worry is not necessary, because the difference between fungi and humans that can infect insects is too big, and I don't know that it takes N mutations to cross humans from insects, so for the time being, there is no need to worry about the horror of "Resident Evil", and it will not affect your happy cicada eating!
However, amphetamines and psychedelics are also effective in the human nerve center, and there are similar phenomena in hallucinogenic mushrooms or other hallucinogenic drugs or plants, and many friends also buy hallucinogenic mushrooms to experience its process, and when some mushrooms with hallucinogenic ingredients can see small people, or feel that they are smaller, etc., it is difficult to imagine how much this hallucinogen will have an impact on the vision of cicadas!