A strange fungus could transform emerging cicadas into ‘saltshakers of death,’ scientists say

This spring, billions of cicadas will emerge after more than a decade underground, ready to climb into the trees and make a ruckus as they sing to attract mates. But some of these insects won’t succeed in their goal of procreating — instead, they’ll be controlled like zombies into spreading a strange fungus that hijacks cicadas’ bodies and behavior.

The details of the fungus’ attack on the bugs — destroying the insects’ genitals, replacing their abdomens with a cavity full of fungal spores, manipulating the bugs into hypersexual behavior to spread the fungus further and transforming the cicadas into what some scientists term “saltshakers of death” — may seem like they belong in a creature feature horror movie. But when it comes to the fungus Massospora cicadina, the truth is actually much stranger than science fiction.”

Zombie cicadas stimulated by an amphetamine?

It’s an awful lot of moving around and mating for animals whose bodies have been torn apart. Kasson and his colleagues have found a potential explanation for what keeps these cicadas going.

We found an amphetamine in those fungal plugs, which provides a plausible explanation as to why the behavioral modification is occurring, after all, amphetamines are powerful stimulants in humans.