Nature's Clean Up Squad...

I give you....the Hagfish.




https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=letqkpG3b5Q

http://www.ntnu.no/gemini/2003-06e/26-27.htm


Check this one!



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bb2EOP3ohnE



Slime (and Behavior)


Hagfish are long and vermiform, and can exude copious quantities of a slime or mucus (from which the typical species Myxine glutinosa was named) of unusual composition. When captured and held e.g. by the tail, they secrete the microfibrous slime, which expands into a gelatinous and sticky goo when combined with water; if they remain captured, they can tie themselves in an overhand knot which works its way from the head to the tail of the animal, scraping off the slime as it goes and freeing them from their human captor, as well as the slime. It has been conjectured that this singular behavior assists them in extricating themselves from the jaws of predatory fish or from the interior of their own "prey", and that the "sliming" might act as a distraction to predators.

Recently, though, it has been reported that the slime entrains water in its microfilaments, creating a slow-to-dissipate viscoelastic substance, rather than a simple gel, and it has been proposed that the primary protective effect of the slime is related to impairment of the function of a predator fish's gills. Reportedly, most (all?) of the known predators of hagfish are birds or mammals, which could lend weight to the "gill-clogging hypothesis" as a highly successful evolutionary strategy tuned specifically to predatory fish.

Free-swimming hagfish also "slime" when agitated and will later clear the mucus off by way of the same traveling-knot behavior. The reported gill-clogging effect suggests that the traveling-knot behavior is useful or even needful to restore the hagfish's own gill function after "sliming".

An adult hagfish can secrete enough slime to turn a 20 litre bucket of water into slime in a matter of minutes.

Research is ongoing regarding the properties and possible applications of the components of hagfish slime filament protein.

That's some kickin snot there man.

CarolinaHound wrote:That's some kickin snot there man.

Yeah.

The vid when one is put in a beaker of water, and ALL the water turns to gloop, was amazing, in it's own way.

As ugly as these creatures seem to be though, they do perform a vital function. And recent research is suggesting that they could be important in human medicine as well.

Another good reason for us to respect our fellow creatures.

One of them might just be holding a cancer cure, and if we kill it off, we kill the solution off, along with it..

Yea, their looking into sharks and their lack of having cancer for a possible cure. But people still want to kill them on sight.