#hagfish

[everydaylouie]

in 2017 a truck full of hagfish spilled on a highway and made a big mess.

...here's a punk/math rock song about it??? lyrics beneath the cut

lyrics:

I am covered in slime

Don’t you even try to get close to me now

I’ve been here a long time

And I’m going to tie myself up to break out

No eyes no bones no spine

Don’t know where to draw the line

Dead whale it’s dinner time

I’m breaking out from the inside

When the truck falls down 

slime will coat

Your Toyota Prius

The slime will flow

Don’t you wanna be us?

When the truck falls down 

slime will coat

The adjoining highway

The slime will flow

Can’t you see it my way?

I am covered in slime

Don’t you even try to get close to me now

[jellogram]

Did you guys ever see the car that got into an accident with a truck carrying hagfish

Can you even imagine being this person. Imagine you call your insurance and tell them you got in an accident. They ask what happened and you have to tell them your car got fucking hagfished

[jazzlung]

stay aware

[jumpintothewaves]

This blog supports hagfish

[captaincrungus]

happy hagfish day i love these slimy wet beasts

[plaguedocboi]

We’re gonna talk about hagfish today, since it is Their Day

Hagfish are vertebrates, but they have no vertebrae! They lack bones entirely, with just a cartilaginous skull and a notochord (making them the only animal with a skull and no spine). They also have no eyes and no jaw. They also like to cuddle.

Exactly where they fall on the tree of life has been an interesting topic. Historically, they were placed as the sister-group to vertebrates; the vertebrate that diverged the earliest, and remained very primitive-looking. However, with new fossil evidence and DNA analysis, we’ve figured out that they are closest related to the lamprey, another jawless fish that does have eyes and bones! Which means the ancestors of the hagfish did as well, but somewhere along the line they decided, “screw it, I’m going back to being a Worm”.

The hagfish spends most of its time at the bottom of the ocean, sniffing around for prey. Although they do actively hunt and catch their own food, it’s much easier to eat things that are already dead, so they’re frequently seen snootling around whalefalls and bait set out by scientists, where they feed by rapidly spinning around until they’ve bored a hole straight through the skin and can get to the tasty insides!

But wait, how does a jawless animal feed at all? It just has a little :O face with no teeth!

Well, great news! That cute little :O isn’t it’s mouth! That’s it’s nose! It’s mouth is underneath.

Ain’t that nifty?

Being a squishy little guy with no teeth or eyes, defending itself is kind of difficult. Luckily, no one wants to eat a hagfish, because they are gross af. They secrete a very thick slime that chokes predators. About 4% of a hagfish’s body mass is pure slime. This slime is also apparently useful to humans, because it contains strands that are stronger than nylon, offering a way to make more durable and environmentally friendly fabric!

In summary,

Happy hagfish day!!

oooOOOOUUUGHGGGGH

[t00thpasteface]

this headline from an image search someone pulled up on the projector during class has absolutely gripped me

[sajanrai]

happy hagfish day for all those that celebrate. I encourage you to learn about one of my favourite animals

[blinkpen]

oh, worm??

[marshland-parlour-cat]

The pixel artist Neorice (https://twitter.com/Neoriceisgood) is making an enormous collection of pixel art marine creatures. I sent him an email asking if I could upload some of his art to my blog and he said I could; so here are a few of my favourites. I might update this post if there are new ones I'm quite fond of.

[nazrigar]

Mermay 2022: Biology Influenced Merfolk

Hey there folks! If you've been following my twitter and instagram, for this Mermay, my theme is to basically take inspiration from real life biology, and apply them to their design as merfolk... especially their wicked set of chompers. It got so popular on Insta, I even made backstories for their designs there xD.

You can read up more about their stories on my Insta, but the gist is this: Kara is a Great White Shark mermaid, and she does her best to look out for her sister, a Lamprey. She lives in a town full of quirky characters, whose merfolk come from multiple kinds of fish and critters of the sea.

[bogleech]

I didn’t design my hagfish pin in a way that this could be visible but I’m fascinated by what their anatomy does here

I can confirm this is accurate to some species but WHY. Why do the gills form an almost perfectly ordered line themselves but at an arbitrarily minor slant relative to the rest of the anatomy until one final cumbersome extra gill hole has to interrupt the proper straight line of the mucus glands. This is the anatomical equivalent to when just a couple of bathroom tiles break the pattern. Was it an error that simply had no consequences worth correcting for or is there an unseen reason why it had to be left that way??? Like would this make sense if we saw not only how the organs are arranged but the order in which they evolved??

[taxonomytournament]

Taxonomy Tournament: Chordata

Myxiniformes. This order is known as hagfish, jawless fish which release slime from their skin to protect themselves from predators. They are the only known living species to have a skull but no vertebral column.

Myliobatiformes. This order of batoids includes stingrays and manta rays.

[chunkfunkgunk-offishal]

Couldn't find out how to submit, so Hagfish.

Today on CHUNK, FUNK, GUNK! We rate

the HAGFISH:

6/10 Chunk

10/10 Funk

20/10 Gunk

Hagfish were actually the reason behind the addition of the Gunk category when I was first deciding on categories. Looks like it would be a lil squishy, good chunk level to be pleasant when held in my hands. Evolutionary perfection with a beautiful smile :) INCREDIBLY FUNKY. You will be hard-pressed to find a creature much more gunky than a Hagfish, SURPLUS GUNK.

[eddieintheocean]

She hag on my fish till I slime