Cicadas with the fungus       Photo: Matt Kasson, via NPR

By now, if you live in the East or Midwest, you have seen the Brood X Cicadas everywhere — doing what they do, emerging from the ground, shedding their skin, mating, and then dying.  But a few of them have a fungus called Massospora, which produces an amphetamine and that causes them to lose control and puts their mating behavior into hyperdrive.  The details of what happens are even grosser — if you want to know, click here.  Cicada expert Matt Kasson of West Virginia University, explained it this way to NPR’s All Things Considered, saying “Everybody’s having a good time while they’re infected. So I don’t imagine there’s much pain — maybe a desire to listen to the Grateful Dead or something like that, but no pain.”  LOL  — Cicadas, keep Truckin’.