No One Is Prepared for Hagfish Slime

[SoCalDem]

https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2019/01/hagfish-slime/581002/
It expands by 10,000 times in a fraction of a second, it’s 100,000 times softer than Jell-O, and it fends off sharks and Priuses alike.

ED YONG
11:46 AM

At first glance, the hagfish—a sinuous, tubular animal with pink-grey skin and a paddle-shaped tail—looks very much like an eel. Naturalists can tell the two apart because hagfish, unlike other fish, lack backbones (and, also, jaws). For everyone else, there’s an even easier method. “Look at the hand holding the fish,” the marine biologist Andrew Thaler once noted. “Is it completely covered in slime? Then, it’s a hagfish.”

Hagfish produce slime the way humans produce opinions—readily, swiftly, defensively, and prodigiously. They slime when attacked or simply when stressed. On July 14, 2017, a truck full of hagfish overturned on an Oregon highway. The animals were destined for South Korea, where they are eaten as a delicacy, but instead, they were strewn across a stretch of Highway 101, covering the road (and at least one unfortunate car) in slime

Typically, a hagfish will release less than a teaspoon of gunk from the 100 or so slime glands that line its flanks. And in less than half a second, that little amount will expand by 10,000 times—enough to fill a sizable bucket. Reach in, and every move of your hand will drag the water with it. “It doesn’t feel like much at first, as if a spider has built a web underwater,” says Douglas Fudge of Chapman University. But try to lift your hand out, and it’s as if the bucket’s contents are now attached to you.


snip

[underpants]

1. O. M. G. like, gag a shark

Literally. That was very interesting. Never heard of that before.

[ProudLib72]

2. Hagfish are so disgusting!

Carrion eaters, slime producers. Reminds me of someone else...

[rhiannon55]

4. Donald, are you leaking?

[ProudLib72]

6. They didn't have XXXXXXXXXXXXXXL Depends at the summit

He finally had to resort to wearing a kiddie pool.

[rhiannon55]

7. Hahahaha!

[CaptainTruth]

3. Back when I travelled to S Korea for work I loved "BBQ eel."

It was delicious, with garlic, of course.

Now I'm wondering if the "eel" was hagfish.

[First Speaker]

5. Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition...

...or their slime. Seriously--this thing looks like something you'd see in one of the more disgusting Python episodes...

[jeffreyi]

8. Good article, thanks

I had no idea about these creatures!

[Hekate]

9. Really interesting article at link. These are amazing critters. nt