As if a black-winged bug with beady red eyes and an obnoxiously loud mating call wasn't bothersome enough, wait until you hear this: cicadas can actually catch a fungus that turns them into sex-crazed zombies.
"Zombie cicadas" are infected with a parasitic, psychedelic fungus called Massospora cicadina. It contains chemicals, including ones that are found in hallucinogenic mushrooms, that can mess with the minds of the cicadas and forces them to behave in ways that spread the fungus.
With this summer's co-emergence of Brood XIII and Brood XIX bringing as many as 1 trillion of the insects, zombie cicadas have been observed in more than half a dozen states. According to Matt Kasson, mycologist and forest pathologist at West Virginia University, zombie cicadas have been spotted in Alabama, Georgia, Illinois, Missouri, North Carolina, South Carolina and Tennessee.
The fungus is sexually transmitted and essentially causes the insect's genitals to rot, leading to severe dismemberment and eventual death.
Once infected, the cicadas exhibit hypersexual behavior. Despite losing their genitals and a third of their bodies to the fungus, they continue to participate in normal activities like flying, walking on plants and attempting to mate.
A zombie cicada looks just like a regular cicada except some of its body is covered with white fungal spores that start oozing off. Infected cicadas spread the fungal spores to other cicadas, acting like zombies.
Infected male cicadas even mimic female mating signals to attract and infect other males. The infected cicada begins rubbing its wings together and giving off a mating call that only the females can produce. This then attracts other males, thinking it is a female calling to them, and the first cicada begins infecting them with the fungus.
The fungus causes cicadas to rot from the inside out while also producing an amphetamine, which gives them increased stamina and wakefulness. This is partly why they're called zombie cicadas: they are awake at odd hours of the night and continue to fly around as if nothing is wrong when in fact they are missing pieces from their bodies that are also failing them at the same time. And they're obsessed with infecting others.
The fungus has confused scientists for years and remains a microbiological oddity. Thankfully, zombie cicadas have not been known to harm humans -- only other insects and themselves.
Brood XIII and Brood XIX aren't the typical cicadas that come every year. They're periodical cicadas that have been hiding underground for more than a decade. The broods, one on a 13-year cycle and another on a 17-year cycle, are both currently hatching -- an incredibly rare event that only happens once every 221 years.
Brood XIX, which last appeared in 2011, was projected to emerge in 14 states:
Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Louisiana, Missouri, Mississippi, North Carolina, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee and Virginia.
Brood XIII, which last appeared in 2007, was expected to emerge in Iowa, Wisconsin, Illinois, Indiana and possibly Michigan.