The first time I worked in Japan, I was in the Kansai region, which lies in the southern part of the main island of Honshu. In the late summer, in the warm, muggy evenings so typical of that region, one omnipresent thing was the call of Japanese cicadas, which, unlike our variety, are present every summer. Hearing the call of the Japanese cicada to this day evokes memories of the rice fields, the orchards, the mountains and valleys of Japan.
Our American variety is very much in evidence this year, as a major hatching cycle is underway. But the American cicadas contend with something their Japanese cousins do not: a fungal infection that would have made George A. Romero clap his hands in admiration, as it turns them into hyper-sexualized zombie cicadas.
A sexually transmitted disease that is said to turn cicadas into “zombies” and causes their genitals to fall off has been…
