This is

This is Scientific American 60 Second Science.

I'm Christopher Intagiyata.

The Mediterranean Sea is home to some 17,000

native species, but it's also home to a growing number of non-native species, 756 at last count.

Now 756 may not sound like a lot compared to 17,000.

But this is not arithmetic. sound like a lot compared to 17,000.

But this is not arithmetic.

Bella Galil, a naturalist at the Israel National Center for Biodiversity Studies in Tel Aviv.

Those invasive species have large population and they rent apart the native food web.

They disturb and already stressed communities.

The invaders she's talking about are central casting for an underwater horror movie.

Take the nomadic jellyfish in huge swarms 60 miles long,

which sent hundreds of people to Turkish hospitals, a few summers back.

Or a type of puffer fish, extremely poisonous,

that occasionally gets fished out and lands at fish

markets by mistake.

Galil says these bad guys, and many others, have invaded the Mediterranean through the ever-wydening Suez

Canal.

As the canal grows, so do the number of non-native species.

And it's a dilemma that's not easily addressed.

It's a humped, it's a sort of a problem.

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