Meet One of the World's Weirdest Fish | National Geographic

When beachgoers at the town of Tirúa, Chile caught this writhing, slimy creature, they had no idea what it was.

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Hagfish are outliers. Their lineage split off from all the world’s more familiar fish long, long ago—probably before they evolved a backbone, something hagfish still lack. Sometimes called “slime eels”—they are slimy, but they’re not eels—hagfish have changed surprisingly little in 300 million years. They make their home on the ocean floor, often very deep. They’re certainly not what Lissete Hermosilla and some friends and family were angling for on a recent fishing trip in the coastal town of Tirúa, Chile. But when they realized that the strange creature had gotten caught up in their fishing gear, they untangled it and set it down to identify. Hermosilla may have found the hagfish’s slime a little gross at first, but she was pleased to see that it made its twisting way back to the ocean.

Meet One of the World's Weirdest Fish | National Geographic

National Geographic

[imagoofygoober]

Looks like me trying to get out of bed Monday morning

[_.-.]

That translation was horrible. The word for "uncle" in spanish and in that context doesn't actually mean uncle.
It means "dude", as in "dude, check that out!"

[francismanancis]

Lmao " You can pick it up and put it back in the water"...
THAT'S A NEGATIVE...

[beautifulbutterfly]

It seems like a combination of snail and eel 😕

[umayrjaved]

Hence proved, TREMORS movie was real!

[gaurimahajan]

Ahh so cool!
Agnatha - Cyclostomata - Myxine (Hagfish)!

[triedproven]

Where fish, eels and slugs meet at a happy medium.

[kojmas]

A catch and release. They didn't throw it back in but threw it where they were standing and watched it craw back down to the water.

[highlycritical]

No offense but I would actually be kind of scared to touch or even come across an animal like this, though I do appreciate it's well being and have a love for all animals

[heezymd]

Few more of them bad boys and I can evolve it into a Dragonite.

[PhilDaBank]

I thought this was the call for a zombie elephant apocalypse

[werksguy]

X-files music going on in the beginning of this video lol!

[Langkowski]

Animal cruelty. This hagfish would never leave the safety of the ocean to crawl over bare rocks on land, and in sunshine.

[hakuchanyuuki]

it looks more like a slug or an eel than a fish, poor creature it got hurt with the rough surface of the rock

[shrinivas]

congratulations fish eaters, you got one more dish for your belly

[MrLeovaras]

that fish look a lot lot like a Lamprey fish, very unusual indeed :/ never in my life I saw one like that :/

[DeViceCrimsin_]

It looks gross. It basically looks like a giant slug.