Invasive Species

Earlier this month, CBC's The Current ran a story about the Gulf of Mexico's massive dead zone, an area about the size of Israel (22,000 sq km) that's completely devoid of oxygen as a result of nutrient runoff from the Mississippi river. It seems that since the fish in the area died off, the dead zone has been invaded by massive colonies of jellyfish. Apparently there are huge jellyfish blooms invading dead zones all around the world, including some truly terrifying giant jellyfish that have taken over the waters off the coast of Japan, which can apparently grow to be as big as a car and weigh up to 500 pounds.


Just to restate that: Giant Jellyfish are attacking Japan.

The story got me wondering about other interesting invasive species, and as usual, Wikipedia was there for me. Here are my picks for the invasive species with the most intimidating names:

Yellow Crazy Ant. This little guy is a fairly typical ant, except for two things. First, if you poke it, it freaks out (hence the name). Second, it forms regular ant colonies under ALMOST all circumstances, and hives compete with each other for food. Every once in a while, though, the hives will decide to cooperate and form SUPERCOLONIES, where the ants stop fighting with each other and instead turn their efforts towards total ecosystem domination, taking down other insects, small mammals, crabs and birds with their ridiculous numbers and acidic venom. Do not mess with the crazy ant.

Dog-Strangling Vine. I think the name says it all.

Sudden Oak Death. I am glad I'm not an oak.

On the other hand, there are some invasive species names that fail to incite the same level of fear. I don't think I'll be losing any sleep worrying about invasions of Chinese mitten crab or the air potato.