Slimed by a Hagfish at the Bottom of the Ocean

The hagfish in the videos are attacked by sharks, conger eels, wreckfishes and more. In less than half a second, the predator's mouth and gills are filled with slime. It leaves, gagging and convulsing, slime hanging in long wisps from its head. Even voracious seal sharks turn tail. The cameras didn't follow the fleeing predators, so Zintzen doesn't know if they eventually died or if the slime dissolved away. Either way, the hagfish, uninjured and oblivious, just carried on feeding. Its defence is so effective that it can totally ignore the fact that a shark just tried to bite it.

-Ed Yong

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