NAME: AURELIA AURITA

ATTACK AREA: BETWEENTHETROPICSANDTEMPERATELATITUDES

PREFERRED TARGET: POWER STATIONS NEAR THE COAST

WEAPON: TENTACLES, ENTIRE BODY

DAMAGE: BLOCKINGTHEFLOWOFCOOLINGWATER,BLACKOUTS

WE DISABLE NUCLEAR POWER PLANTS

Nuclear power plants are among the most secure facilities

on the planet. To date, human hackers have not been able

to cause significant damage to them, but animals have—

and they don’t even need a brain to do so. In 2013 jellyfish began

an assault that IT experts would call a denial-of-service attack:

A huge swarm of the soft-bodied aquatic animals invaded the

cooling-water intake pipes of a Swedish nuclear power plant on

the Baltic coast, which supplies 10% of the nation’s electricity.

This led to one of the plant’s three reactor blocks being switched

off for three days. Though jellyfish are made up of 95% water,

they are a force to reckoned with: Coastal power plants in South

Korea, Oman, Scotland, and the U.S. are among their victims.