This Illinois “Zombie” Cicada Has No Body Left, But LIVES
I'll confess I don't exactly understand what I'm about to show you. It's a dead cicada in Illinois that has almost no body left, but it moves and I have video to prove it.
Based on the video description, this happened in Odin, Illinois. The lady who captured the video says this zombie cicada landed on her southern Illinois porch.
To try and learn what's going on with this cicada, I found an article from Ask an Entomologist about the death of insects. They mentioned that some insects perform thanatosis which basically means pretending to die as a defense mechanism. They go on to say some animals can continue life even without a head due to physiology of how they're built.
For this cicada which appears to have lost most of its body, it's likely still alive since it has the head remaining and legs. How long it can exist in this state is another question for another day. It is an eerie moment you don't exactly want to witness on your front porch in Illinois though.