On the morning of November 3, 2010, sensational information appeared in many media outlets. For example, the Daily Telegraph reported:
“The sea monster has sunk a 10-ton ship
A fishing vessel with a displacement of 10 tons was sunk near the Japanese port of Chiba by giant jellyfish.
The trawler Diasan Shinsho-maru turned upside down when three of its crew tried to drag a net filled with giant Nomura jellyfish aboard.
The weight of such a sea monster can reach 200 kilograms, and the diameter of its dome is two meters. This year, in the waters washing Japan, there is an unusually massive accumulation of such creatures.
The fact that when the trawler wrecked, the members of his crew were thrown into the sea, was a happy outcome for them - they were saved by a passing ship. The local weather bureau reported that at the time of the disaster, the sky was clear and the sea calm.
The previous case, when jellyfish caused damage to humans, was noted in 2005. Then they destroyed the fishing nets and even attacked the fishermen themselves. And during 2007, the coast guard received more than 15 thousand reports of damage to fishing gear by jellyfish.
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Experts are confident that the sudden increase in the population of these creatures in the mentioned water area is associated with a decrease in the number of their natural enemies, first of all - sea turtles, as well as some fish species”.
Why are there so many
The giant jellyfish Nomura have been a threat to both Japan and other countries washed by the Yellow Sea for a number of years. And not only by the Yellow, but also by the seas connecting with it - East China and Japan. And this, alas, is not surprising - according to a number of studies, in recent years, conditions for Nomura's breeding have become more favorable, as the Japanese kill animals that pose a danger to them, for example, whales that feed on plankton, in which jellyfish eggs and their young individuals are hiding … The Chinese do their bit too - they dump huge amounts of artificial fertilizers and organic matter into the sea. This leads to an intensive growth of plant plankton and zooplankton, which jellyfish feed on.
Poisonous "cubes"
However, it is not only Nomura's jellyfish that threaten people. Perhaps the most dangerous are the very tiny, cubic-like creatures - up to one centimeter long - belonging to the deadly species Chironex fleckeri - Australian cubic jellyfish (cubo-jellyfish), or sea wasps. They are also called stinging worms.
These jellyfish are some of the most poisonous creatures in the world. They are found in the coastal waters of Australia, the Philippines, Indonesia, Vietnam, the Hawaiian and Caribbean Islands, and other tropical regions. For a person, the poison of "cubes" can become fatal. Since 1954, 5,568 deaths have been officially registered from the "bite" of a stinging worm. However, some marine animals, for example turtles, are immune to such poison and even eat "worms".
Unlike ordinary jellyfish, "cubes" are actively looking for prey, they are able to move in water at a speed of up to four knots (up to two meters per second).
Causes of the global invasion of relics
According to scientists, jellyfish appeared on Earth 500 million years ago and managed to survive all the cataclysms that hit our planet - in contrast to their peers and younger marine contemporaries, who disappeared long ago and without a trace: trilobites, belemnites, ammonites and, of course, dinosaurs.
Nowadays, there is an intensive expansion of jellyfish in many areas of the World Ocean, even in such small, closed and polluted seas as the Black and Baltic.
Everything that happens is a consequence of the unreasonable economic activity of a person. Thus, mass catches of fish cause a disturbance in a very vulnerable balance in the ecosystem, a “species void” is formed in it, and those species of organisms that have the greatest ability to survive, such as jellyfish, rush into this void, or ecological niche.
If people finally do not come to their senses and do not stop their rough intrusions into the environment, then the entire World Ocean will soon be filled with jellyfish, and they will become its only inhabitants.
These strange freshwater
As a rule, in our minds the concept of "jellyfish" is inextricably linked with the concept of "sea", more precisely, "sea water". However, the existence of freshwater jellyfish is an established fact, all the more strange if we take into account how painfully they react even to a slight decrease in the salinity of the water of the sea jellyfish. Nor does it find a convincing explanation for the fact that jellyfish do not live permanently in a certain area of the freshwater area, but appear there only occasionally and for a limited time. One of these jellyfish, belonging to the species Craspedacusta sowerbii, was first discovered in the waters of the Danube in Slovakia in 1961. In general, its existence became known in 1880, when the English zoologist Edwin Ray Lankester (Lankester, 1847-1929, foreign corresponding member of the St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences. - Approx.translator) discovered this intestinal animal in a water sample taken from a lake in one of London's parks. The diameter of the dome of the caught specimen was about two centimeters; several hundred stinging threads grew around its circumference.
Craspedacusta sowerbii in the water. like all other jellyfish, they move, pulsating with their body, feed on phyto- and zooplankton. It remains unclear how they got into the Danube waters. Indeed, according to ancient chronicles, the "homeland" of this living creature is the Chinese Yangtzejiang River (Blue River), where such jellyfish were known back in the 13th century.
Ales Khruska's hypothesis
Of course, cryptozoologists have their own exotic version of all this. She also explains the suddenness of the mass appearance of jellyfish in any section of the river and the same rapid total disappearance, and then another appearance, but in a different place.
This version is based on the theory of the existence of parallel worlds, contacts between which, despite their isolation from each other, are still possible and sometimes occur. Here is what the famous Czech researcher of the unknown Aleja Hruska says about this in his book "Parallel Worlds" ("Paralelny svet"):
“If we proceed from the possibility of such contacts throughout the entire period of existence of life on Earth, then it should be assumed that under certain favorable physical conditions, not only people, but also other living beings can penetrate into parallel worlds, and in both directions …
And, consequently, in addition to specific forms of flora and fauna, in a parallel world there may be such forms that can exist in our world, if the local biological conditions of life and reproduction are acceptable for them."
So maybe the jellyfish that settled in the Danube are "migrants" who entered our habitat from some parallel world? It looks like it is.
“Each species found is usually represented by a small number of specimens, - continues Ales Khruska, - which means that their habitat is not quite suitable for them.
According to a number of historical sources, such creatures in the past were no more numerous than they are now. Nowadays, having experience in the protection and protection of endangered animal species, we can argue that such a small population could not ensure the survival of this species. A logical explanation would be the penetration of these creatures from another dimension, the current time in which would correspond to our Mesozoic period. Animals that found themselves in a parallel world, with favorable conditions for their existence and development, would begin to multiply intensively, and over time would occupy one of the dominant places in their new habitat”.
It seems that this hypothesis allows you to get answers to many questions that often arise among cryptozoologists when studying amazing finds in different parts of our planet. How much it will help explain the origin of jellyfish in the waters of the Danube - the future will show.
Robert K. Lesnyakevich
Abbreviated translation
Vadim Ilyina
Source: Magazine "Secrets of the XX century" № 39