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
