Hagfish shoot slime that clogs gills and deters predators. Learn how they do it, why it's important, and how it could help humans too.

Meet the humble hagfish, an ugly, gray, eel-like creature affectionately known as a "snot snake" because of its unique defense mechanism. The hagfish can unleash a full liter of sticky slime from ...

Hagfish are sometimes classed as fish although that’s in dispute, for they lack both backbones and jaws. Instead, their mouths contain a wide plate of cartilage, armed with two rows of horny teeth.

At first glance, the hagfish—a sinuous, tubular animal with pink-grey skin and a paddle-shaped tail—looks very much like an eel. Naturalists can tell the two apart because hagfish, unlike ...

Hagfish are also known as slime eels, thought they are not eels. They belong to the class Agnatha, fish without jaws. There are an estimated 76 species of hagfish, which live in cold waters around ...

“So with hagfish, this is something totally new. We hadn’t been fishing for them. It’s like, finding a new species of salmon or something you’re going to fish for.” The young fishery is ...

This incredible ability was made clear during a 2017 traffic accident, when a truck full of hagfish that was en route to South Korea — where hagfish are considered a delicacy — overturned on ...

Scientists recently discovered a rare and important hagfish fossil that includes traces of preserved slime dating to 100 million years ago. Eyeless, jawless hagfish — still around today — are ...

Donor-Advised Funds Support KQED by using your donor-advised fund to make a charitable gift. What keeps the boneless, jawless hagfish thriving after more than 300 million years? SLIME. The goop it ...

Hagfish are widely considered the most disgusting animals in the ocean, if not on earth. The eel-shaped creatures use four pairs of thin sensory tentacles surrounding their mouths to find food ...