™
Photo courtesy of T. Frank
If you think the Hagfish is the true beauty of Hagfish Day, vote for it in our Ugly-Beauty contest!
Depending on the kind of hagfish they are 9.8 to 39 inches (25 to 100 cm) long. However, the giant hagfish reaches 4 feet (127 cm) and weighs 13.7 lb (6.2 kg) Newly hatched hagfish are a little more than 1.5 inches (4.5 cm) and look just like an adult.
These deep-sea creatures are found all over the world in temperate and cold temperate waters but generally not in the polar seas. Hagfish have been seen as deep as 16,405 feet (5000 m)
Well, what don't they eat? All hagfish species are important predators and scavengers dining on small invertebrates as well as dead and dying fish and other animals. In true hagfish fashion, it even eats with a distasteful flair. It eats prey from the inside out by burrowing into or entering a dead or dying fish through the gills, mouth, or anus. It licks (scrapes) off the flesh and organs with its tooth-covered tongue. The hagfish leaves behind a sack skin, filled with bones. Yum!
What eats them?
Hagfish are a popular food time for sea lions, seals, dolphins, porpoises, octopus...and people. Hagfish can be 25 to 50% of some predator's diets.
Hagfish aren’t as attractive as their name implies. At a glance, they look like an eel. Take a closer look and you’ll find a (generally) 2-foot long jawless, boneless, scaleless deep-sea creature that oozes slime. Buckets of slime. Hagfish are so disgusting, scientists quiver when they accidentally catch one. When asked to describe hagfish, one deep-sea scientist replied, “Bleeeeeccccccch!”
That’s just the response the hagfish wants.
Oozing from pores on its side, slime cocoons the
hagfish inside a clever, if not disgusting, shield.
As most deep sea scientists quickly discover, a 19 or 20 inch (50 cm) hagfish
can fill an 2 gallon (8 liter) bucket with slime in a matter of minutes.
Just as kids avoid the classmate with snot
dripping from his nose, the gross glop repulses predators. The slime may make
them slippery, giving the hagfish a chance to slip away. Predators that ignore
the gooey armor can actually be smothered by it.
(Photo: Gene Helfman and hagfish slime, read his
interview)
De-slime, de-slime….a hagfish can smother itself with its own slime. To squeegee off the slime, a hagfish ties itself in a knot. The knot rolls down the body pushing the slime off as it moves. (Just as you’d slide your hand down a washcloth to squeeze out the water.) That knot comes in handy in another way. A hagfish uses the knot to give it leverage to pull of a chunk of flesh from its dinner.
Other fantastic things about hagfish...
Hagfish do not bleed when injured and those boo boos do not get infected. Scientists are investigating any possible scientific uses for hagfish and their slime. No, that doesn't mean grossing out their friends with practical jokes (though our slime activity would work for that!), some believe there may be medical uses for the slime.
Threats:
It's hard to believe there's a mad dash to catch hagfish...but there was....is. Not only are they eaten by some cultures, they are the real "skin" in eelskin products -- boots, wallets, purses...etc. Guess marketing "hagfishskin boots" had limited appeal? Little is known about their populations, breeding...etc. which means scientists cannot determine how this fishery might affect hagfish populations.
Discover more about the fascinating hagfish, read Dr. Jeffrey Drazen's interview.
Don't forget to read Dr. Gene Helfman's interview...be ready to be awed, amazed...and grossed out!
(Slime photo courtesy of Gene Helfman/
Hagfish photos courtesy of
T. Frank
Citation: Musgrave, Ruth A. Hagfish. Fishin' for Facts. WhaleTimes, Inc. (whaletimes.org) 2011
Don't forget to celebrate WhaleTimes' Hagfish Day™ October 19, 2011
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