In 2017, a car accident occurred on a highway in Oregon, USA. A large truck stepped on the brakes to avoid the construction area. As a result, a box on the car flew out and hit a car coming oncoming. Unexpectedly, because of this box, the relevant departments had to spend a day cleaning the scene with bulldozers and high-pressure water guns.
Because in the box, there are thousands of hagfish . The hagfish looks a bit like a yellow eel, the eyes have degenerated, the head has 4 pairs of tentacles, the mouth looks like a suction cup, and the fine and sharp teeth are on it. 's strange appearance once made people wonder what kind of alien creature it was.
The greatest ability of hagfish is to secrete mucus and secrete a large amount of mucus. On the highway, is the box of hagfish. The large amount of mucus secreted by the frightened one after the entire highway was "flooded". The worst thing about is the car hit by a box of hagfish, which is like just coming out of the scene of a science fiction horror film.
This seemingly ordinary skill has made most ferocious carnivorous fish avoid them. Even if a shark accidentally bites hagfish, he will immediately let go.
shark spit out hagfish
The flexible body prevents hagfish from being bitten to death. On the contrary, it will tie a knot on its own body, block the enemy's throat, so that the predator cannot swallow it alive directly. After ensures its own survival, it is a defensive counterattack.
There are many mucus glands on both sides of the body of hagfish, which secrete about 5 milliliters of mucus in 0.4 seconds after being attacked. After is combined with water, the mucus will "expand" 10,000 times in an instant. If the enemy does not retreat in time, the mucus like glue will drill into their gills along the water flow, blocking the gills tightly, causing these fish to suffocate and die.
Shark's Nightmare
Of course, if it only secretes mucus, it will not make the ocean overlord shark feel scared. But the way hagfish survives does make people stand upside down. They will swim to the shark, use their suction cup mouth to absorb it on the shark, and then move little by little towards the shark's gills.
When the shark starts to prey, the hagfish senses that the time has come, so they drill into the shark's gills, and then along the gills into the shark's soft abdominal cavity. Now it has become a "major trouble" for the shark.
Any animal is fragile. Hagfish will nibble on the shark's internal organs in the body of the shark, and its sharp teeth can scrape off the internal organs and muscles of prey like scrapers. This hurts enough, but it's not the end.
Hagfish eats a lot, and it can eat its own 18 times the weight of fish . At the same time, because their skin can also absorb nutrients, hagfish will also twist its body crazily while eating . This way of eating will undoubtedly cause greater pain to sharks.
After waiting for a long 6 or 7 hours, the hagfish will eat and drink, and they will bite through the shark's abdomen and drill out. The whole scene is terrible, so they are also named "Breaking Belly Fish" , but at this time, the shark has long died in endless torture.
One of the most terrifying creatures in the world
How did hagfish evolve into this? The story starts 600 million years ago.
.6 billion years ago, it was the most intense pre-Shendan period, where the earth's section was active, a group of primitive chordates drilled into the seabed cave. The sudden earthquake left them trapped in the dark cave. No one could have thought that their descendants, hagfish, would become one of the most terrifying creatures in the world in millions of years.
In a dark and dull environment, vision is the least needed thing. The hagfish's eyes have long degenerated and turned into two white spots, and their vision has been extremely weakened.But They are distributed throughout their bodies with supersensory cells that are difficult to see in the naked eye, which replaces the role of vision to a certain extent.
Their heads have 4 pairs of tentacles, giving hagfish a sensitive sense of touch, allowing them to sense the slight changes in water flow caused by predators when approaching. There are also taste buds on the tentacles that can distinguish different fish flavors, used to find valuable prey.
In a harsh environment with extremely lack of resources, hagfish has evolved the ability to survive in water from 10 to 35℃, and can still be safe without eating for half a year. In order to reproduce, they become hermaphrodite animals, and they can reproduce offspring by themselves
The most special thing is its skin, which also has several functions of defense, eating, and breathing.
Their skin and muscles are not tightly connected, and they appear loose. This special structure gives them enough space under the skin to easily get rid of the bites of animals like sharks. Because sharks' teeth are essentially just scratching the skin, they cannot cut off the muscles under the hagfish's skin.
In order to obtain more nutrition, the capillaries on the surface of hagfish's skin have become extremely developed, and the salt concentration in the body becomes consistent with the salt concentration in the sea area where you are located, and it can absorb soluble substances.
At the same time, it can breathe through the skin. This allows them to not be suffocated by the hypoxia environment there even if they penetrate into their prey. And in the outside world, hagfish can also breathe through the nose, and they are also the only fish that breathes through the nose. In addition, they also have 4 hearts, one as the main pump and the other three as the auxiliary pump.
Wait 300 million years ago, the hagfish trapped in the cave returned to the ocean due to an earthquake, becoming the great devil in the ocean that scared countless fish. According to fossil data, their body structure has basically not changed in the past 300 million years, and they can travel around the world by relying on their old capital.
Hagfish is known as one of the most terrifying creatures in the world. They can not only filter plankton, but also drill into animal corpses and scavenge their internal organs and fish meat, until only fish skin and bones are left. People once found 123 hagfish in a cod . It is hard to imagine the pain it suffered during its lifetime.
Horror Demon King has become a dining table food
Such a terrifying creature, even my country, which is known as a foodie country, and Japan that likes to eat eels and , not many people will eat them. Of course, hagfish is actually not eels, and it is normal for Japanese people not to eat them. But in Korea, hagfish has become a delicacy served on the dining table. According to an estimate by a trading company operator in California, South Korea may consume 8 million kilograms of hagfish each year.
In the beginning, Koreans threw hagfish directly into straw, then lit the straw to make it into rice-burned hagfish. After it was cooked, they removed the burnt hard shell to expose the tender meat of hagfish. It was said that the taste was very good. Later, the Koreans developed the cooking method of directly nailing hagfish to nails, then peeling them and then grilling them on the fire.
Because hagfish has strong vitality, it can survive for several hours even after being peeled, so hagfish placed on the barbecue rack are often still twisting. The delicacy of is probably difficult to accept without a certain psychological endurance.
Hagfish mucus may be able to replace synthetic fibers
Biologically, hagfish are considered "primitive vertebrates". Their bones are entirely composed of cartilage. Research on it may explain the origin of some vertebrate characteristics.
Harvee's mucus
In addition to hagfish itself, its mucus is also being studied. Many commonly used synthetic fibers, such as nylon and lycra, are actually from petroleum products. Scientists have been looking for their substitutes, and hagfish mucus fiber is one of the possible ones. It is not only natural and environmentally friendly, but also economical and cost-effective.
The thickness of hagfish mucous fiber is one percent of that of human hair, but its strength is more than ten times that of polyurethane fiber. Polyurethane fiber is widely used in a series of fields such as clothing, medical masks, bandages, and military equipment.
Perhaps many years later, we will wear clothes made of hagfish mucus fibers.
Reference
"The Best Assassinator - Hagfish" Lexian
"Haefish that eats meat"
"Haefish that eats with skin" Hu Deliang
"Haefish, the super killer of slimness" Su Guanglu
"Haefish mucus stimulates the imagination of US Navy researchers"
"Haefish mucus fiber" International Textile Guide
"Haefish cannot be seen: clown fish brings great blessings to the textile industry" Xia Ling
