A Sexually Transmitted Fungus Is Making Trillions of Cicadas Hypersexual and Gay

I know. If you just read the headline on this post, you’re probably confused. You might think I’ve just stumbled into an insane rabbit hole that would make Alex Jones pee his pants. But I promise that what I’m sharing is real. It’s not from some comedy website or Onion post. This is a real story about a real fungus that has a peculiar effect on cicadas.

There’s a lot I could say about that effect. But I do no think I’m mature enough to paraphrase it. So, go ahead read the article for yourself. Even if you don’t find it interesting, you can’t deny that this might very well be the single greatest headline of the year thus far. And I don’t know if or when it can be topped.

Them: A Sexually Transmitted Fungus Is Making Trillions of Cicadas Hypersexual and Gay

No, society is not turning your kids gay. But cicadas and fungus? Well, that’s another story.

Last week, CBS News reported that, this spring, trillions of the bugs are expected to emerge in huge numbers not seen in decades and maybe even centuries, resulting in “cicada-geddon,” as one scientist called it. On top of that, some of the bugs will be “zombie cicadas,” who are infected with a sexually transmitted fungal pathogen known as Massospora cicadina. The fungus makes them hypersexual… and gay.

Matthew Kasson, a professor of mycology and forest pathology at West Virginia University, told CBS that, when infected, a cicada’s genitals will fall off within the next week or so as the fungus erupts and covers roughly a third of their body. Yet at the same time, the fungus produces an amphetamine that, basically, makes male cicadas super horny for their fellow bugs, regardless of their sex.

“Males, for example, they’ll continue to try and mate with females — unsuccessfully, because again, their back end is a fungus,” Kasson said. “But they’ll also pretend to be females to get males to come to them. And that doubles the number of cicadas that an infected individual comes in contact with.”

If you managed to make it through that snippet and aren’t uncomfortably horny right now, I’ll just add this.

Nature is amazing!

It’s also kinky, dirty, and horny as hell. But it’s still amazing.

Beyond the sheer poetry of the headline and the raw sexiness of the science, I also think it’s worth taking a moment to appreciate the sheer weirdness of our world. Everyone has a certain perception when it comes to nature, how it works, and what makes it beautiful. Those perceptions aren’t right or wrong. But no matter how we feel about nature, the way it manifests in the real world is always going to be more elaborate.

We see bugs and we usually don’t give them a second thought.

Someone mentions fungus and the first thing we think about is mushrooms on pizza.

But nature dares to do more with both in ways we never would’ve imagined, even in our most eccentric moments. It’s capable of producing bugs like cicadas, which make this strange, but distinct noise that most always associate with hot summer days. It’s capable of producing fungus that causes mold in our showers, as well as mold that makes cicadas irrationally horny.

Again, nature is amazing!

You can think what you want about fungus affecting the sexual behavior of bugs. Our moral judgements really don’t affect nature, no matter how weird we think it is. But it still happens. It manifests around us. And there are probably other ways it manifests that we’re not aware of that might very well be even kinkier.

Even so, I challenge nature and those who study it to top this headline. Because honestly, I don’t think it can be done.