Jellyfish – A bad apocalyptic story?

I had saved the newspaper clipping of the photo of translucent jellyfish from at least a couple of years ago. Unfortunately, I didn’t save the article, so I had no idea what this jellyfish was about or why it was so important as the size of the image was pretty large. I liked the look of the jellyfish—its mysterious body structure and delicate skin. An alien-like figure floating in the water, I was just fascinated. But with so many fascinating and interesting images that I save, I didn’t do anything with it until now. It was always either in the “to be used” file or taped on the studio wall for the longest time.

Then, one day, I just got really curious about why this jellyfish was so important in the newspaper, so I started doing my research. Soon, I stumbled upon a number of articles and reports about jellyfish invasion in the ocean in the last decade. There were many reports siting the climate change to cause the surge in numbers of jellyfish worldwide; global warming increases the water temperature thus these cold-blooded jellyfish grow faster, and the increasing acidity in the oceans is also killing jellyfish’s natural predators, thus jellyfish can enjoy risk-free life in the oceans. Overfishing was also to be blamed for taking away their natural predators. Jellyfish are immune to the effects of acidification. So, acidifying oceans and warmer waters were encouraging jellyfish to bloom, many reports claimed.

I found many fascinating images. But one particular article struck me with images of giant jellyfish in Japan in 2009. Nomura jellyfish is one of the largest jellyfish species in the world, growing up to 6.5 feet (2 meters) wide and weighing as much as 440 pounds (200 kilograms). I just couldn’t imagine a jellyfish—a jellyfish, really? —weighs more than me. This jellyfish looked like just came out of some sort of sci-fi movie!
See the image of Nomura jellyfish.

Another fascinating images and reports were about a huge swarm of jellyfish clogging the cooling system of the Orot Rabin power station in Hadera, Israel in 2011. Similar cases were found in Japan, Scotland and Ireland, and a jellyfish invasion caused the shutdown of the nuclear power plants in Japan as well. But the image of a number of large containers filled with dead jellyfish was something else. Once taken out of the water, jellyfish are just slimy looking grotesque creatures. Their translucent skin no longer beautiful, they just looked like some plastic blubber that you definitely don’t want to step on.

See the imagesof slimy jellyfish found in the power station in Israel.

This was just getting too surreal. Looking at the images of these creatures and reading these reports, I was thinking, “Is this for real?”

I also learned from Wikipedia that jellyfish are free-swimming marine animals (not really fish), and can be found in every ocean, from the surface to the deep sea—anywhere in the oceans! Even a few jellyfish inhabit freshwater. And they have been swimming in the seas for at least 500 million years, and possibly 700 million years or more. This makes them the oldest multi-organ animal! 

So, now I was in awe with this strange creature. They could shutdown the nuclear power plant (with a huge group effort,) and they might, one day, really take over the oceans. I just thought it all sounded too crazy. This could be a plot for some bad apocalyptic movie. I recalled a book called “The Taking” by Dean Koontz (not that it was a bad story.) I think it was some overgrowing mushroom or plants in this book…. I can’t quite remember. But now, I have an image of jellyfish “blooming” to their fullest capacity in the oceans. And I’m looking at the original newspaper clipping of my jellyfish, and saying, “You? Really?”

So, here’s my jellyfish drawing. It’s graphite on paper.

My further research led me to some recent reports that claim lack of evidence for jellyfish invasion, and instead claiming that it is a consequence of periodic global fluctuations. Either case, scientists are saying that more studies on jellyfish are needed. (And perhaps, more drawings are needed too.) So, I decided to make a series of drawings. Stay tuned….