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A fungus that infects cicadas and pushes their mating into hyperdrive

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Re: A fungus that infects cicadas and pushes their mating into hyperdrive

#21

Post by hinkley »

vmception wrote: post #9

Sometimes I feel like we are sharing the world with fungus. As in, fungus consciously doesn't generate spores on us because it figured out that we will just grow it and put it in drinks and spread it any way. So using our mental processing power just let fungus realize it didn't have to try to use all its energy on the host capture and spore release routine. And of course, the observation that it has nothing to do wi…

Up until the green revolution, all land agriculture on earth was mediated by fungi. Lichen are basically fungi farming cyanobacteria, and some people suspect there's an unbroken chain all the way down the plant evolutionary tree. It's not outside of the realm of possibility that trees are just a very long breeding program by fungi as well.

We, as cousins to fungi, get to enjoy the literal and figurative fruits of their labor.

Re: A fungus that infects cicadas and pushes their mating into hyperdrive

#22

Post by neom »

hinkley wrote: post #18
neom wrote: post #13

"In yearly cicadas, the fungus makes them instead become hypersexual from psilocybin — the same chemical found in psychedelic mushrooms." I don't understand what's being said here. The fungus causes them to eat magic mushrooms? Edit: This is a better article: https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2018/07/massospo...

Mushrooms are just the fruiting body. Fungal cells don't differentiate, so odds are good that if the mushroom gets you high, eating the dirt under the mushroom - where most of the fungus is - will also do the same thing. If you were somehow infected by one of these mushrooms, you'd be tripping all the time, not unlike the people who have beer yeast in their GI tract are slightly inebriated every time they eat simple…

That makes so much sense now. Thank you kindly for clarifying.

Re: A fungus that infects cicadas and pushes their mating into hyperdrive

#23

Post by ignoramous »

Reminds me of this NatGeo Hostile Planet video on Cordyceps, a fungi that infects ants [0] It drugs the ant, takes control of its muscles, and forces it to climb up to a spot where there's just enough sunlight and humidity for the fungi to grow some more. 3 weeks in, the ant is all but a breeding ground of Cordyceps ready to unleash on other ants, with enough reach to wipe out entire ant colonies.

Here's the kicker, there are over 600 species of Cordyceps that infect a variety of insects.

May be the fiction writers have it wrong... It could very well be a Fungus that likely causes a zombie apocalypse, having evolved from lack of rain forests and crawlers to infest...

[0] https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/vijGdWn5-h8

Re: A fungus that infects cicadas and pushes their mating into hyperdrive

#24

Post by tastyfreeze »

hinkley wrote: post #18
neom wrote: post #13

"In yearly cicadas, the fungus makes them instead become hypersexual from psilocybin — the same chemical found in psychedelic mushrooms." I don't understand what's being said here. The fungus causes them to eat magic mushrooms? Edit: This is a better article: https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2018/07/massospo...

Mushrooms are just the fruiting body. Fungal cells don't differentiate, so odds are good that if the mushroom gets you high, eating the dirt under the mushroom - where most of the fungus is - will also do the same thing. If you were somehow infected by one of these mushrooms, you'd be tripping all the time, not unlike the people who have beer yeast in their GI tract are slightly inebriated every time they eat simple…

Injecting spores into your blood stream can infect your body with mushrooms. DO NOT DO THIS, it can be fatal.

https://www.insider.com/man-injected-with-mushrooms-grew-in-...

Re: A fungus that infects cicadas and pushes their mating into hyperdrive

#26

Post by rasz »

vmception wrote: post #9

Sometimes I feel like we are sharing the world with fungus. As in, fungus consciously doesn't generate spores on us because it figured out that we will just grow it and put it in drinks and spread it any way. So using our mental processing power just let fungus realize it didn't have to try to use all its energy on the host capture and spore release routine. And of course, the observation that it has nothing to do wi…

bacteria instead of fungus, but similar premise:

https://whatever.scalzi.com/2010/10/02/when-the-yogurt-took-...

Re: A fungus that infects cicadas and pushes their mating into hyperdrive

#27

Post by happytoexplain »

neom wrote: post #13

"In yearly cicadas, the fungus makes them instead become hypersexual from psilocybin — the same chemical found in psychedelic mushrooms." I don't understand what's being said here. The fungus causes them to eat magic mushrooms? Edit: This is a better article: https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2018/07/massospo...

I don't totally follow your confusion - it's "the same chemical found in magic mushrooms". It's not implying they consume magic mushrooms.

Re: A fungus that infects cicadas and pushes their mating into hyperdrive

#28

Post by thaumasiotes »

ignoramous wrote: post #23

Reminds me of this NatGeo Hostile Planet video on Cordyceps, a fungi that infects ants [0] It drugs the ant, takes control of its muscles, and forces it to climb up to a spot where there's just enough sunlight and humidity for the fungi to grow some more. 3 weeks in, the ant is all but a breeding ground of Cordyceps ready to unleash on other ants, with enough reach to wipe out entire ant colonies. Here's the kicker,…

> It drugs the ant, takes control of its muscles, and forces it to climb

Really? Is the climbing caused by muscular movements provoked by the fungus, or is it caused by the fungus causing the ant to desire to climb up to such a spot, and letting the ant move its own muscles?

Re: A fungus that infects cicadas and pushes their mating into hyperdrive

#29

Post by neom »

GauntletWizard wrote: post #20
neom wrote: post #13

"In yearly cicadas, the fungus makes them instead become hypersexual from psilocybin — the same chemical found in psychedelic mushrooms." I don't understand what's being said here. The fungus causes them to eat magic mushrooms? Edit: This is a better article: https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2018/07/massospo...

Psilocybin is the active ingredient (a psychedelic prodrug, or drug precursor that's metabolized into a drug) in Magic Mushrooms. The fungus generates psilocybin and sheds it into the cicada, causing them to become hypersexual.

I wonder how the fungus knew how to make psilocybin, and that psilocybin was the right thing to make? Nature is pretty intense.
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