Forums

Cincinnati police said a cicada is responsible for a single-car crash in the city's East End neighborhood Monday evening. While the driver sustained only minor injuries, the cicada was not as fortunate, and was found dead on the car's floorboard.

The cicada flew through an open window and hit the driver's face, causing them to crash into a utility pole and total the car, according to a tweet by the Cincinnati Police Department.

"The life story of the Brood X cicadas already sounds a lot like the lore of the living dead, but now, in Louisville, there’s one more reason a closer comparison of them can be made to zombies.

“The pathogen does produce some unusual compounds that mess with the cicada’s mind and its behavior,” Rachel Barger, who works at Idlewild Butterfly Farm, said. “So, that they could be described as ‘Zombie Cicadas.’

That happens when the red-eyed bugs are infected by a specific fungal pathogen.

It’s a natural phenomena that’s garnered supernatural names including “Zombie Cicadas” and “Flying Salt Shakers of Death.”

“The abdomen falls off to expose the white plug of spores,” Barger said. “So, some people call them ‘Flying Salt Shakers of Death’ because they’re flying around spreading fungal pathogens all over the place. They are also sometimes called ‘Zombie Cicadas’ because the pathogen does produce some unusual compounds that mess with the cicadas’ mind.”

The infliction of “Zombie Cicadas” is not an insatiable hunger for brains, but, instead, the bugs’ behavior changes to better spread the fungus."

https://www.wave3.com/2021/06/15/zombie-cicada-discovered-louisville-cemetery/

Have you noticed dead cicadas on the ground, or that the bugs are not chorusing as loud as during past weeks? It’s because cicadas reached peak numbers last week and are starting to die at a rapid rate.

In some places, you may be smelling them as they rot away.

“As we move past the peak, the dead [cicadas] are starting to pile up, returning their nutrients to the soil,” wrote Daniel Gruner, a professor of entomology at the University of Maryland, in an email.

That decay process is producing an odor and, yes, cicadas are to blame.