Get out your 2020 bingo card and check the box for zombie insects. Just when you thought Murder hornets were the worst thing that gave us nightmares this year, scientists recently discovered a new one cicada Population infected by a parasitic fungus that controls their minds and forces them to infect other insects.
A fungus called Massospora infects the cicadas and fights the insects in an unusual way. The fungus contains chemicals like those found in hallucinogenic fungi that can control the behavior of the cicadas. This emerges from a new study written by researchers at West Virginia University and published by PLOS Pathogens.
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The way Massospora fungal spores attack cicadas sounds like a horror movie. The spores devour the back, belly and even the genitals of the cicada, where they deposit even more fungal spores, which the cicada can spread to other cicadas like a sexually transmitted disease.
Then "the cicadas' body parts wear out like an eraser on a pencil," said study co-author Brian Lovett in a statement on July 27.
The new study focuses on the unusual sexual behavior of the infected cicadas. While infected cicadas can no longer mate because their backs are taken over by the fungus, the cicadas still try to mate to sexually transfer the fungus to healthy cicadas.
The study explains that the fungus manipulates male cicadas to move their wings so that they mimic women's mating signals so that they can also infect other healthy male cicadas with the fungus.
"Basically, the cicadas lure others to get infected because their healthy colleagues are interested in mating," said Lovett. "The bioactive compounds can manipulate the insect to stay awake and transmit the pathogen longer."
Remarkably, the cicadas infected with fungi not only try to mate, but they also do their usual insect activity, although much of their body has been removed and taken over by spores.
"If one of our limbs were removed or our stomach was sliced up, we would probably be unable to act," the study co-author Matthew Kasson told CNN on Monday. "But infected cicadas, despite the fact that a third of their bodies have fallen off, continue to do their mating and flying activities as if nothing had happened. This is really, really unique for insecticidal fungi."
While this new study focuses on Massospora, there are other fungal parasites that also control their insect hosts as if they were zombies.
""Zombie ant mushroom"Ophiocordyceps unilateralis is a fungal parasite that mainly occurs in tropical forests. The fungal parasite continues to grow in the ant's body for up to 10 days until it finally penetrates the ant's head and releases deadly fungal spores, which then infect more ants.
Previously, scientists believed that the zombie ant mushroom used the ant's brain to control its movements. In a new article, research now shows that the parasite surrounds the ant's muscle fibers, not the brain, to control the insect's body.
