Pacific hagfish

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Pacific hagfish
Scientific classification
Kingdom: Animalia Phylum: Chordata Class: Myxini Order: Myxiniformes Family: Myxinidae Genus: Eptatretus Species: E. stouti
Binomial name
Eptatretus stouti Linnaeus

The Pacific hagfish (Eptatretus stouti, also known as the slime eel) is a species of hagfish. It lives in the mesopelagic to abyssal Pacific ocean, near the ocean floor. It is a jawless fish, a throwback to the Paleozoic Era when fish evolved. Deep-sea diving equipment is known to have been fouled by large amounts of hagfish slime near the bottom of the ocean, extruded by the eel-like fish when they are alarmed.

The hagfish is notorious for its slimy skin. When disturbed, it oozes a chemical from its skin that rearranges the molecules in the slimy outer coating, expanding it into a huge mass of slime. This makes them very unsavory to predators. Hagfish create large amounts of slime in just minutes. One scientist researching this biochemical phenomenon concluded that a single hagfish could fill an entire barrel with slime in less than 100 minutes. (Muse magazine, 2006)

In many parts of the world, including the US, hagfish-skin clothing, belts, or other accessories are advertised and sold as "yuppie leather".

The hagfish is eaten in Japan and other Asian countries, along with its eggs and its slime. The section of the fishing industry devoted to hagfish-fishing has grown in recent years, as people discover the economic and health benefits of this long-forgotten food source from the bottom of the ocean.

The hagfish has feelers that enable it to find food more easily. It is an opportunistic feeder, and enjoys dead and rotting animals that float down from the pelagic zone of the ocean. Swarms of hagfish will descend upon the carcass and devour it from the inside out. This efficient mode of marine waste disposal helps to keep the ocean floor clean of rotting animals, which helps to regulate the global cycles of phosphorus, carbon and nitrogen.