- Nov 26, 2011
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Nature is really amazing and weird and wonderful.
This year, we will be seeing two variants of cicadas emerge at the same time. One variant emerges every 13 years, the other emerges every 17 years.
Those are prime numbers. How cool is that?
This means every 221 years, they emerge at the same time. And 2024 is that year.
Cicadapocalypse! Get your fly swatters, bug zappers, and netted helmets at the ready!
The last time this happened, Thomas Jefferson was making the Louisiana Purchase! The Napoleonic wars were just kicking off. The Supreme Court established the principle of judicial review in Marbury v. Madison. Congress approves the Twelfth Amendment due to the kerfuffle of the 1800 election. And Joe Biden was born.
This time around, they will observe the nomination of a rapist for president.
www.iflscience.com
When it’s time for cicadas to emerge, they wriggle from where they’ve been lurking in the ground for over a decade and shed their exoskeletons. The once-in-their-lifetime event is what has to happen so that they can reproduce, and it’s a short-lived mass orgy that unfortunately isn’t excused from the threat of sexually transmitted pathogens.
A fungus called Massospora cicadina is well-known among the scientific community, an opportunistic pathogen that crashes the cicada orgy and spreads from insect to insect via sexual contact. Effectively an STI, the fungus can spread from an infected female to other cicadas as they attempt to copulate.
“It’s a sexually transmitted fungus,” said John Lill, a cicada expert and chair of biology at George Washington University, to IndyStar. “They engage in normal courtship behavior, yet their abdomen is a big fungal mass. Instead, the attempted copulation results in spreading the fungus even more.”
It’s a different beast to the fungi that inspired The Last Of Us, but it’s still a mind-altering one that changes the cicadas behaviors. Infected males will sing for female mates, but they’ll also flap their wings, which attracts males. As the fungus continues to eat away at the cicada’s reproductive organs, the insect will pass it on to every other cicada they encounter. Eventually, the eating away becomes so severe the cicada’s butt actually falls off.
This year, we will be seeing two variants of cicadas emerge at the same time. One variant emerges every 13 years, the other emerges every 17 years.
Those are prime numbers. How cool is that?
This means every 221 years, they emerge at the same time. And 2024 is that year.
Cicadapocalypse! Get your fly swatters, bug zappers, and netted helmets at the ready!
The last time this happened, Thomas Jefferson was making the Louisiana Purchase! The Napoleonic wars were just kicking off. The Supreme Court established the principle of judicial review in Marbury v. Madison. Congress approves the Twelfth Amendment due to the kerfuffle of the 1800 election. And Joe Biden was born.
This time around, they will observe the nomination of a rapist for president.
Cicadapocalypse Returns To The US With First Double Brood Emergence In 221 Years
Fly, my pretties.
www.iflscience.com
When it’s time for cicadas to emerge, they wriggle from where they’ve been lurking in the ground for over a decade and shed their exoskeletons. The once-in-their-lifetime event is what has to happen so that they can reproduce, and it’s a short-lived mass orgy that unfortunately isn’t excused from the threat of sexually transmitted pathogens.
A fungus called Massospora cicadina is well-known among the scientific community, an opportunistic pathogen that crashes the cicada orgy and spreads from insect to insect via sexual contact. Effectively an STI, the fungus can spread from an infected female to other cicadas as they attempt to copulate.
“It’s a sexually transmitted fungus,” said John Lill, a cicada expert and chair of biology at George Washington University, to IndyStar. “They engage in normal courtship behavior, yet their abdomen is a big fungal mass. Instead, the attempted copulation results in spreading the fungus even more.”
It’s a different beast to the fungi that inspired The Last Of Us, but it’s still a mind-altering one that changes the cicadas behaviors. Infected males will sing for female mates, but they’ll also flap their wings, which attracts males. As the fungus continues to eat away at the cicada’s reproductive organs, the insect will pass it on to every other cicada they encounter. Eventually, the eating away becomes so severe the cicada’s butt actually falls off.
