{"id":7324,"date":"2017-10-08T17:37:50","date_gmt":"2017-10-09T00:37:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.cicadamania.com\/cicadas\/?p=7324"},"modified":"2026-02-09T09:26:41","modified_gmt":"2026-02-09T16:26:41","slug":"cicada-fungi-research","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.cicadamania.com\/cicadas\/cicada-fungi-research\/","title":{"rendered":"Cicada Fungi Research"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.cicadamania.com\/cicadas\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/10\/Magicicada-septendecim-with-Massosporan-fungus-found-at-the-Edison-Memorial-Tower-Park-in-Edison-NJ.jpg\" alt=\"Magicicada septendecim with Massosporan fungus found at the Edison Memorial Tower Park in Edison NJ\" width=\"640\" height=\"480\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-11308\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.cicadamania.com\/cicadas\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/10\/Magicicada-septendecim-with-Massosporan-fungus-found-at-the-Edison-Memorial-Tower-Park-in-Edison-NJ.jpg 640w, https:\/\/www.cicadamania.com\/cicadas\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/10\/Magicicada-septendecim-with-Massosporan-fungus-found-at-the-Edison-Memorial-Tower-Park-in-Edison-NJ-300x225.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 640px) 100vw, 640px\" \/><br \/>A &#8220;Salt-Shaker of Death&#8221;. (Deadly for the cicada, not humans.)<\/p>\n<p>Many types of fungi will eat cicadas, but one type &#8212; the Massospora &#8212; specifically infests and destroys cicada genitalia. Specifically, <a href=\"\/cicadas\/which-fungus-attacks-magicicadas-massospora-cicadina\/\">Massospora cicadina<\/a> attacks Magicicada cicadas, and <a href=\"http:\/\/hydrodictyon.eeb.uconn.edu\/projects\/cicada\/sp_pages\/NA_species\/O_rimosa.html\">Massospora levispora<\/a> attacks Okanagana rimosa. According to <a href=\"http:\/\/www.mycobank.org\/BioloMICS.aspx?Table=Mycobank&#038;Rec=273656&#038;Fields=All\">the website MycoBank Database<\/a>, there&#8217;s at least 19 species of Massospora. By the names of some, you can guess which cicada it infects; <a href=\"http:\/\/www.mycobank.org\/BioloMICS.aspx?Table=Mycobank&#038;Rec=273657&#038;Fields=All\">Massospora diceroproctae<\/a> likely infects <a href=\"\/cicadas\/category\/genera\/diceroprocta\/\">Diceroprocta cicadas<\/a>. <\/p>\n<p>It&#8217;s not certain, but there are sure to be many more species of Massospora fungi &#8212; if not one for each species, perhaps approximately one for each genus. Considering that Massospora infects cicadas all around the world, it&#8217;s fair to assume that Massospora has been infecting cicadas for many millions of years. <\/p>\n<p>At West Virginia University, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.davis.wvu.edu\/faculty-staff\/directory\/matthew-kasson\">Matt Kasson<\/a> &#038; his team are studying Massospora, and are looking for samples of cicadas with these infections. Matt regularly Tweets photos and finding such as this one of spores from a Platypedia cicada:<\/p>\n<p>If you have some samples of such cicadas and are willing to part with them, let Matt know. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A &#8220;Salt-Shaker of Death&#8221;. (Deadly for the cicada, not humans.) Many types of fungi will eat cicadas, but one type &#8212; the Massospora &#8212; specifically infests and destroys cicada genitalia. Specifically, Massospora cicadina attacks Magicicada cicadas, and Massospora levispora attacks Okanagana rimosa. According to the website MycoBank Database, there&#8217;s at least 19 species of Massospora. [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[332,1055],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7324","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-massospora","category-matt-kasson"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cicadamania.com\/cicadas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7324","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cicadamania.com\/cicadas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cicadamania.com\/cicadas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cicadamania.com\/cicadas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cicadamania.com\/cicadas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7324"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.cicadamania.com\/cicadas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7324\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21571,"href":"https:\/\/www.cicadamania.com\/cicadas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7324\/revisions\/21571"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cicadamania.com\/cicadas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7324"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cicadamania.com\/cicadas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7324"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cicadamania.com\/cicadas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7324"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}