Flying Psychedelic Salt Shakers of Doom

May 18, 2021 4:45 AM

Billions of cicadas are about to emerge from the ground, and a psychedelic mushroom is along for the ride. “With missing butts and full hearts, they’ll forge ahead with their only reason for existing: finding a mate and reproducing” Nature is amazing and fills me with awe!
posted by tarantula (50 comments total)

Anybody got an alternate link ?

We are temporarily unavailable to users from certain countries while we upgrade our site to implement new methods for data processing as required by applicable laws.
posted by Pendragon at 5:01 AM on May 18, 2021 [1 favorite]

With missing butts and full hearts,

Sounds better when Kyle Chandler says it.
posted by AlonzoMosleyFBI at 5:18 AM on May 18, 2021 [5 favorites]

“Imagine if, after a lifetime underground, you only had a few glorious weeks to live in the sun, eat and mate,” she said. “And then your butt fell off.”

That sounds like the Charlie Brown of insects.

The arms race aspect of it fascinates me. The cicadas evolve to have this life cycle so that they have no group of predators waiting for their arrival. Then the fungus evolves to use the brood's overwhelming numbers as a delivery mechanism. What would the next step have been if people weren't around?
posted by any portmanteau in a storm at 5:26 AM on May 18, 2021 [7 favorites]

profit?
posted by kokaku at 5:30 AM on May 18, 2021 [9 favorites]

We're waiting on one of the 13-year broods in our immediate area. Next year or two, I think. About a week or two after the last one ended, one final cicada emerged and REEEEEE'ed its heart out in one of our trees. It had missed the whole party, the poor thing. I felt so bad for it.
posted by jquinby at 5:42 AM on May 18, 2021 [14 favorites]

The article is not available for me too, but I guess it's similar to Brood X Periodical Cicadas FAQ .
posted by javanlight at 5:53 AM on May 18, 2021

Metafilter: And then your butt fell off.
posted by verbminx at 5:57 AM on May 18, 2021 [8 favorites]

Probably the most important bit of info from the above FAQ:

If you have a shellfish allergy, you may have a cicada allergy if you eat them.

posted by Pyry at 6:23 AM on May 18, 2021 [3 favorites]

(archived)

This is the second FPP today whose article mentions Massospora.

I, for one...
posted by progosk at 6:24 AM on May 18, 2021 [5 favorites]

Anybody got an alternate link ?

In cases like this go to a proxy site such as this one, paste the url and select an US server.
posted by Pyrogenesis at 6:25 AM on May 18, 2021 [1 favorite]

We had a huge group of early XIIIs out here in the suburbs of Chicago last summer and it was awesome. Kind of jealous of the east coast right now.
posted by JoeZydeco at 6:25 AM on May 18, 2021

What would the next step have been if people weren't around?

Not sure us humans figure into either of those strategies at all, really.
posted by progosk at 6:30 AM on May 18, 2021 [1 favorite]

The article is not available for me too, but I guess it's similar to Brood X Periodical Cicadas FAQ .

Uh, so, not exactly, this article's twist has so far been entirely absent from the usual brood X discussions that I've seen:

A fungus laced with the same chemical as psychedelic mushrooms will invade their bodies and eat away their insides until their abdomens crack, fall off and get replaced with a ball of white spores. Because they’re either bombed on psilocybin or under the control of the fungus in some other way, the cicadas won’t even notice. With missing butts and full hearts, they’ll forge ahead with their only reason for existing: finding a mate and reproducing.

Of course, that last part will be impossible with half their body rotted away.

Anyways, it's just starting up in Baltimore; a cicada fell on my knee in the park yesterday, then walked very slowly away before getting eaten by a bird halfway across the path. Nature!

Also worth watching the David Attenborough clip on 17 year cicadas.
posted by advil at 6:39 AM on May 18, 2021 [1 favorite]

I have the funny feeling that if you sat down and contemplated the sheer number of highly specific evolutionary quirks and habits and blind alleys natural selection went through, to the point that this very highly specific parasitic relationship came about such that this very specific fungus developed that would perfectly lock into this very specific insect's mating habits, the resulting mind-fuck you would get would be analogous to ingesting psychedelic mushrooms.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 6:57 AM on May 18, 2021 [6 favorites]

Brood V emerged in Southern Ohio during my senior year of college. It was both amazing and super gross. Tree trunks were literally covered in cicadas, all the way around and all the way up. When they died, the gutters filled with their carcasses. But there was endless comedy potential in how frikkin clumsy the damn things were. They would launch themselves off the sidewalk to try to fly away from you, parabola wildly in the air, only to smack right back into your head.

I'm wondering how bad Brood X be in urban Chicago, where I am now. Hopefully not as bad as it was in rural Ohio 22 years ago!

ETA, that article is hilarious. Someone definitely had fun writing it.
posted by merriment at 6:58 AM on May 18, 2021 [1 favorite]

never been out while they're actually molting before, but i got some shots of the cicadaning last night. (twitterselflinks) the noise was wet and creepy. i understand from prior years' press mania, that while they're still wet and whitish is when you want to eat them. (i didn't.)

there are some, uh, butts lying around on the sidewalk out there this morning.
posted by 20 year lurk at 7:02 AM on May 18, 2021 [3 favorites]

Probably the most important bit of info from the above FAQ:

If you have a shellfish allergy, you may have a cicada allergy if you eat them.

If.
posted by ricochet biscuit at 7:10 AM on May 18, 2021 [3 favorites]

Metafilter: butts lying around on the sidewalk out there this morning.
posted by jquinby at 7:18 AM on May 18, 2021 [4 favorites]

Metafilter: And then your butt fell off.

You need the full thing to really get the true MeFi flavor:

Metafilter: After a lifetime underground, you only had a few glorious weeks to live in the sun, eat and mate. And then your butt fell off.”
posted by ryanshepard at 7:29 AM on May 18, 2021 [6 favorites]

if you eat them

My father was nostalgic for his WWII time in Burma, and somehow got ahold of a Slow Moving Loris as a pet. We didn't really know what to feed it, but then the 1970 brood X emerged, and who knew? His slow moving arms would strike like lightning to snatch up cicadas!
posted by StickyCarpet at 7:33 AM on May 18, 2021 [11 favorites]

We watched monkeys at the National Zoo going berserk in the last Brood X emergence - catching them on the wing and gobbling them up.
posted by jquinby at 7:35 AM on May 18, 2021 [2 favorites]

That sounds like the Charlie Brown of insects.

Mate For Your Life, Charlie Brown
posted by RobotVoodooPower at 7:44 AM on May 18, 2021 [2 favorites]

I'm wondering how bad Brood X be in urban Chicago, where I am now

Brood X doesn't live in the Chicago area. Here's the map.

Brood XIII does live in Chicago and "has a reputation for the largest emergence of cicadas known anywhere". They'll be here in 2024. It's going to get LOUD.
posted by JoeZydeco at 7:58 AM on May 18, 2021 [1 favorite]

The image at the top of the article is perfect. That cicada is tripping balls.
posted by sjswitzer at 8:33 AM on May 18, 2021 [2 favorites]

Article recommends not eating old fungus-laden cicadas because they'd be crunchy and dry and gross, but psilocybin is water-soluble.

Will it blend?
posted by flabdablet at 8:34 AM on May 18, 2021 [3 favorites]

“And then your butt fell off.” ¶ That sounds like the Charlie Brown of insects.

Surely that’s more Opus the penguin.
posted by stopgap at 8:47 AM on May 18, 2021 [5 favorites]

I find this article enormously frustrating because it's getting a fair amount of attention but it's a wholesale retread of this older and better article by actual (inter)national treasure Ed Yong, which includes this absolutely world-class lede:

Imagine emerging into the sun after 17 long years spent lying underground, only for your butt to fall off.

It does look like the similar kicker quote in this article is from a TV segment that predates Yong's 2018 piece, but the rest of it seems to be a recap plus one interview (and a quote from an old TV segment as the kicker). I know Ed Yong doesn't need me to white knight for him, he's an ASME finalist this year and should probably get a Pulitzer on top of it, but just for the record!
posted by babelfish at 9:04 AM on May 18, 2021 [8 favorites]

Amazing! This part:

'It causes males to both sing and flick their wings, allowing them to attract any partner they can. That larger playing field helps the spores spread farther and wider.

“It’s this gender-bending, death-zombie fungus,” Lill said.'

I love this a lot.
posted by Lawn Beaver at 9:05 AM on May 18, 2021 [1 favorite]

We had a huge group of early XIIIs out here in the suburbs of Chicago last summer and it was awesome. Kind of jealous of the east coast right now.

Head on down to Indiana. The whole state basically is Brood X
posted by 922257033c4a0f3cecdbd819a46d626999d1af4a at 9:08 AM on May 18, 2021 [1 favorite]

The whole state basically is Brood X

In more ways than one....
posted by GenjiandProust at 9:15 AM on May 18, 2021 [3 favorites]

they’ll forge ahead with their only reason for existing: finding a mate and reproducing.

Someone needs to introduce them to smooth jazz, they have the rhythm already.
posted by sammyo at 9:21 AM on May 18, 2021 [1 favorite]

A cycle or two ago on a cross country drive I pulled into a small town motel. Some intense construction was going on, really loud, enough to have second thoughts about stopping. Looking around there just were no workers for as far as I could see, and the midwest a long way. Took a bit to realize that it was not heavy equipment. Amazingly loud and constant.
posted by sammyo at 9:25 AM on May 18, 2021

They are maracas, not salt shakers.
posted by dances_with_sneetches at 9:30 AM on May 18, 2021 [3 favorites]

“Imagine if, after a lifetime underground, you only had a few glorious weeks to live in the sun, eat and mate,” she said. “And then your butt fell off.”

So… sort of like an insectoid Spring Break, ending in tragedy?
posted by njohnson23 at 10:00 AM on May 18, 2021

I love that sound. My wife thinks I'm crazy.
posted by ivanthenotsoterrible at 10:01 AM on May 18, 2021

They're already all over our yard. I won't yuck anyone else's yum, but I also am not required to suspend my entomophobia for Brood X, and so I am extending my normal annual Avoidance of the Outdoors during spring pollen season until these freaky little red-eyed dudes and dudettes are gone. Fresh air for me can definitely wait a few weeks.
posted by bowtiesarecool at 10:13 AM on May 18, 2021 [3 favorites]

So a few years after the last brood, when our tiny urban yard had been all but destroyed by our Boxer, we tore up what remained and installed K9 Grass, essentially modified astroturf, which while kinda odd completely exceeded our expectations in performance and durability and has now even outlasted our pup. Only after his departure, given time to think during quarantine, did it occur to me that this summer eight billion cicadas were going to surface under that plastic lawn and find no way up or out and we'd witness a writhing green surface that would crunch if you walked on it and likely soon begin to stink like only a solid .10 acre of decaying bugs could in a Midwest summer.

So we got that going for us, which is nice,
posted by thecincinnatikid at 10:33 AM on May 18, 2021 [18 favorites]

we'd witness a writhing green surface

The answer is the same as always: fire. And napalm. And possibly phosphorus. These are all different types of fire, and you will want to have as many different types of fire going as you can manage. Just to be on the safe side, you understand.

Now that I think of it, some of the more esoteric electronics manufacturing chemicals could also come in handy, if you can acquire a cylinder or two. Chlorine trifluoride, for example, could be a valuable (if absurdly dangerous) ally in your battle against The Evil.
posted by aramaic at 10:53 AM on May 18, 2021 [4 favorites]

> Brood X doesn't live in the Chicago area. Here's the map.

Thanks for that map link, now I understand why despite having lived in five different states I've never experienced a cicada swarm first-hand. It's because grew up where there aren't significant brood populations, went to college in a place that experienced its n-year swarm two years before I enrolled, spent most of my adult life where there aren't significant brood populations, and currently live in a place that had its last swarm about five months before I moved in.
posted by ardgedee at 11:00 AM on May 18, 2021

Metafilter: this gender-bending, death-zombie fungus
posted by medusa at 11:41 AM on May 18, 2021 [1 favorite]

We had a cicada year shortly before I moved out of NC. There was no way to avoid either the godawful sound or the weird metallic tang everywhere in the air. I hated it and I'm glad I no longer have to deal with it where I live now.
posted by Greg_Ace at 11:52 AM on May 18, 2021

It's like living in a Biblical plague. Except locusts don't scream 24 hours a day, I dont think.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 12:06 PM on May 18, 2021 [3 favorites]

I was sad that Minnesota isn't on any of the Brood maps -- but I know I'd heard cicadas before? I thought all cicadas were on a prime-number cycle. Apparently we get something called dog-day cicadas who are around every year, but in smaller numbers.
posted by AzraelBrown at 1:09 PM on May 18, 2021

Chlorine trifluoride, for example, could be a valuable (if absurdly dangerous) ally in your battle against The Evil.

"It is, of course, extremely toxic, but that's the least of the problem." -- Clark, John D.
posted by mikelieman at 3:57 PM on May 18, 2021 [1 favorite]

Chlorine trifluoride, for example, could be a valuable (if absurdly dangerous) ally in your battle against The Evil.

"It is, of course, extremely toxic, but that's the least of the problem." -- Clark, John D.

I'm beginning to dig the HST way of considering the consequences - need to order a case of tequila, bump my bad bud for an 8-ball of mescaline, dig out my Jefferson Airplane and oil up the shotgun.
posted by thecincinnatikid at 5:02 PM on May 18, 2021

My father was nostalgic for his WWII time in Burma, and somehow got ahold of a Slow Moving Loris as a pet. We didn't really know what to feed it, but then the 1970 brood X emerged, and who knew? His slow moving arms would strike like lightning to snatch up cicadas!
posted by StickyCarpet

Wow StickyCarpet, I think you may have just explained the slowness of the Slow Loris: they have slowed down their metabolism (and presumably rates of cell division, etc.) to extend their lives and bridge long intervals between short, sharp abundances.
posted by jamjam at 5:30 PM on May 18, 2021 [2 favorites]

his ass fell off
posted by dmd at 5:54 PM on May 18, 2021 [2 favorites]

My father was nostalgic for his WWII time in Burma, and somehow got ahold of a Slow Moving Loris as a pet. We didn't really know what to feed it, but then the 1970 brood X emerged, and who knew? His slow moving arms would strike like lightning to snatch up cicadas!

Uh, hmm. Somehow, despite my child being born during the last Brood X emergence, and me thinking he'll be learning to drive during the next one, I never really grokked the fact that I was born during a Brood X year.
posted by mollweide at 5:55 PM on May 18, 2021 [1 favorite]

This intersects with an article I read the other day that's more about fungi than cicadas, but it does mention "flying salt shakers of death," so the title here caught my attention.
posted by Mister Moofoo at 10:49 PM on May 18, 2021 [1 favorite]

dmd, the “ass fell off” story is older than that. Thomas Pynchon uses it in the novel “V”, and suggests that it’s already an old story but I couldn’t track down anything earlier.
posted by sjswitzer at 10:45 AM on May 19, 2021