After reading Gwynn Guilford’s article, “Jellyfish Are Taking Over the Seas, and It Might Be Too Late to Stop Them”, we can quite easily come to the conclusion that jellyfish will cause the end of times. Forget zombies. Forget robots. Forget aliens. Jellyfish will bring on the apocalypse, people. Here’s why:

1. Jellyfish can shut down power plants.

The Oskarshamn nuclear power plant in Sweden provides 10% of the country’s energy and it had to be shut down because blooms of moon jellyfish were clogging the cooling system. (A bloom is a population explosion of jellyfish.) Incidents like this have happened to power plants all over the world. Because the jellyfish population is constantly increasing (see reason 4), it can only mean more power plants will constantly be at risk. ‘Revolution‘ here we come!

2. Jellyfish are destroying fisheries.

Jellyfish blooms have caused the fishing business to lose billions of dollars. More importantly, they create obstacles for fisherman. Not only can jellyfish burst nets and clog trawl lines, there was an incident in Japan where a Nomura jellyfish, which is roughly the size of a refrigerator, capsized and sank a fishing boat!

3. Jellyfish stings can be deadly.

The box jellyfish may just be the deadliest creature on this planet. The venom the box jellyfish emits can kill you within four minutes. In the Philippines, 20 to 40 people die each year due to box jellyfish.

There’s also the Irukandji jellyfish which can constrict your airways and cause you to look like a meth addict. After that, it can lead to a brain hemorrhage. According to Scientific American, 1 out of every 5 persons stung by a Irukandji jellyfish ends up on life support.

4. The jellyfish population is constantly increasing.

Jellyfish reproduce via polyps, or bundles of jellyfish clones that eventually grow into baby jellyfish. However, these clones can create clones, creating an army of jellyfish! Ah! So many nightmares!

Furthermore, some types jellyfish can continue to procreate even after death. If you were cut open a jellyfish, the body can release even more polyps that will eventually create more jellyfish. This type of jellyfish is called the Benjamin Button jellyfish. (Did those jellyfish namers even see the movie? Okay, never mind.)

5. Humans are inadvertently aiding the jellyfish.

There a few reasons why we’re helping the jellyfish population. First of all, because of the fishing business, we’re getting rid of jellyfish predators for them. Because we utilize fish species that can kill off jellyfish, we’re helping jellyfish survive in various marine habitats.

Furthermore, we play a huge factor in jellyfish reproduction. Polyps need to cling on to hard surfaces into order to grow into jellyfish. These hard surfaces can be anything from pollution to piers, turbines and boats.

These are just a few of the reasons why we’re doomed due to jellyfish. Plus, research suggests that there many be nothing to stop the proliferation of jellyfish blooms. Let’s just hope we can see a ‘Jellyfish-nado’ movie sometime in the near future. That would be the only positive side effect.