The ultimate biofilament: Hagfish slime

(Phys.org) —Perhaps the worst fate to be had in the sea is to be slimed by the hagfish. The proteinaceous goo they secrete has gotten many a hagfish out of bind by gumming up the gills and suffocating a would be attacker. ...

Hagfish found to eat through its skin

(PhysOrg.com) -- A new study in Canada has shown that the primitive fish called the Hagfish, which has the habit of burrowing into dead or dying creatures on the sea bed, eats by absorption through its skin and gills as well ...

Evolution of the inner ear: Insights from jawless fish

Researchers at the RIKEN Center for Biosystems Dynamics (BDR) and collaborators have described for the first time the development of the hagfish inner ear. Published in the journal Nature, the study provides a new story for ...

Discovery sheds light on how vertebrates see

New research led by the University of Leicester has overturned a long-standing theory on how vertebrates evolved their eyes by identifying remarkable details of the retina in the eyes of 300 million year-old lamprey and hagfish ...

Study solves part of hagfish slime mystery

University of Guelph researchers have unravelled some of the inner workings of slime produced by one of nature's most bizarre creatures – hagfish.

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Hagfish

Hagfish are marine craniates of the class Agnatha or Myxini, also known as Hyperotreti. Some researchers regard Myxini as not belonging to the subphylum Vertebrata. That is, they are the only living animals that have a skull but not a vertebral column.

Despite their name, there is some debate about whether they are strictly fish (as there is for lampreys), since they belong to a much more primitive lineage than any other group that is placed in the category of fish (Chondrichthyes and Osteichthyes). The earliest fossil record dates back approximately 550 million years, or earlier to the Lower Cambrian period. Their unusual feeding habits and slime-producing capabilities have led members of the scientific community and popular media to dub the hagfish as the most "disgusting" of all sea creatures. Although hagfish are sometimes called "slime eels", they are not eels at all.

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