26Asian Hornet
The Asian Hornet accidentally came to France with some pottery from China in 2004. It has since become an invasive species, is now populated all over France, and is currently sweeping through the rest of Europe as we speak.
27. Marbled Crayfish is the only type of crayfish that can clone itself. All specimens of marble crayfish are female. Since no known wild population of it existed before it was discovered in pet trade by aquarium hobbyists, it is speculated that they are the result of accidental hybridization. It is now an invasive species in many counties.
28. Japan is infested with invasive North American Raccoons, due to the popularity of the 1977 Cartoon series "Rascal the Raccoon." Thousands of Japanese adopted Raccoons, only to let them into the wild when they proved to be poor pets.
29. Biologist Warwick E. Kerr crossbred European and African honeybees to make a hybrid that would produce more honey in tropical conditions. He accidentally created the killer bee, a deadly variant that has since become one of the most successful biologically invasive species of all time.
30. The walking catfish can breathe air and use its pectoral fins to "walk" and move to different aquatic environments. Native to Southeast Asia, it became an invasive species in Florida during the 1960s and has been sighted in California, Connecticut, Georgia, and England.
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31Bradford Pear Trees
Bradford Pear trees are considered a highly invasive species. It was once thought they would be sterile as a hybrid. They're incredibly weak and are often damaged in storms, so their life span is usually 15-20 years. They are also known as the "sem*n tree" due to its distinctive smell, which has been descried as a cross between rotting fish and sem*n.
32. Hydrilla was introduced to America in the 1950s by someone who discarded a used aquarium containing the plant in waters near Tampa Bay, Florida. It is now one of the most invasive marine plant species in the Western hemisphere and notoriously difficult to manage, much less eradicate.
33. The lionfish is a prolific invasive species in the Atlantic Ocean and sharks typically don't recognize them as prey. It is decimating native ecosystems and is thought to be responsible for a drop in the biomass of native reef fish species by an average of 65 percent. To control its population, conservationists have attempted to train reef sharks to prey on them and even chefs and diners are campaigning to eat them.
34. Fire Ants are an invasive species to the US. The FDA estimates that $5 Billion is spent annually on medical treatment, damage, and control in areas infested with the ‘Red Imported Fire Ant.’
35. The common Tumbleweed which has been used to symbolize the American frontier in Hollywood movies is an invasive plant species native to Russia. They arrived through a contaminated flax shipment from Russia. The only two states that have not been infested by it are Alaska and Florida and they reportedly very tasty as a boiled vegetable or in salads.
