
Though vying for the position of world’s largest bag of jello, the Nomura jellyfish is securely the most obnoxios: the critter rankled the nets and nerves of Japanese fishermen through sheer abundance. They could possibly end their fishing industry, which consists of illegal whaling and shark hunting, but some new undiscovered species of Rhinoceros Jellus,named for its improbable size, will probably emerge from the isthmus of Panama and sting and slash its way through warming waters, gobble up the Nomura’s, and remain a plague on all fishermen.
The world certainly recognizes the signs indicative of a warming world. Somewhere, glaciers retreat, corals bleach, species invade, genetic diversification degrades, a bark beetle eats trees and a child discovers the deaths of bees. But they remain transfixed to headlines and glamour, where each whittles away in the back of our minds (and crops), waiting for the poignancy of relatibility to occur. My city contains bark beetles. I have seen glaciers retreat, touched sickly-white polyps and witnessed the birth and death of endangered bald eagles, but Nomura remains elusive on the other side of a different world, just as droughts in Barcelona and monsoons in India appear sequestered to the United States.
Yet, the Nomura itself is inescapably fantastic. Swathed in a light-pink coronet frilled with crimson lace and tooth-like corsages, the jellyfish fits more readily with Captain Nemo than on a fishing fleet. Fully grown, most specimens outsize adult humans; but Nomura is known for its venom, capable of eliminating a catch of fish in a single swoop.
They spawn in plankton –rich waters, produced by pollution or increasing temperatures. At the same time, they will float across news for days, weeks, and, by a fluke, a month, hyped by initial concern and fueled by superficiality. Eventually, they too will take a backseat with the bees and bizarre weather cycles when the next harbinger- a toxic worm from Venezuela or micropollen inducing seizures- claims our attention. Those affected will undoubtedly cry out, and others will stay externally solicitous at best. One day, no headlines will run when a new strain of common flu hits the world, but instead a common, universal plague will excite each and everyone to action.
But that already happened with bovines, and it already conceded its spot too.






