Death by slime. JV Chamary introduces us to the slimiest animal in the world who can use its slime to carry out deadly actions
Hagfish are, probably, the slimiest animal in the world – and they can use their slime for lethal purposes.
These eel-shaped, jawless fish possess specialised slime glands that have two types of cell: mucous cells that release mucin and thread cells that exude skeins (loosely coiled fibres) of protein around 15cm long. When mixed in seawater, the mucins and skeins create a copious amount of slime incredibly quickly.
A Pacific hagfish, for example, can produce a litre in under 0.1 seconds. Hagfish slime is deployed as a defence to clog the gills of fish predators, causing them to suffocate.
The hagfish is definitely worthy of a place on our weirdest sea creatures and weirdest fish lists – and if we had it – our nightmare list.
Main image © Peter Southwood, CC BY-SA 4.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0, via Wikimedia Commons