Today, our friends Chris and Lance brought us a beautiful hagfish! It's a very strange fish that lives just offshore in deeper waters and is often caught in lobster pots.
In honor of Hagfish Day, learn about the seemingly-disgusting creatures' gill-clogging slime and ability to digest dead carcasses through their skin.
Hagfish are widely considered the most disgusting animals in the ocean, if not on earth. The eel-shaped creatures use four pairs of thin sensory tentacles surrounding their mouths to find food—including carcasses of much larger animals. Once they find their meal, they bury into it face-first to bore a tunnel deep into its flesh.
Despite the fact that they seem repulsive, they are undoubtedly unique—and just because animals are disgusting to human sensibilities doesn’t mean they don’t deserve our attention and protection. That is the message behind Hagfish Day, which occurs every year on the third Wednesday of October: that we can find beauty in the ugly and protect all ocean animals.
Here are 14 fun facts about the unusual group of animals: