There are all kinds of strange and magical creatures living in the ocean, some of which would be hard to believe that they are native to Earth if not seen with their own eyes.
Mysterious car accident scene
There was a very peculiar traffic accident in the United States, a large truck full of goods was involved in an accident on the highway, causing a box of goods to be scattered on the road. It may not sound serious, but the cargo on the car is a sea creature called hagfish, which looks very scary and can release a lot of "glue" from the body, and eventually nearby vehicles are glued to the road, kilometers maintenance personnel have to suspend the passage of the road section, spending a lot of time to clean the road.
The strange creature in the picture is the hagfish, its image is difficult to say, and in addition to looking terrible, the habits of hagfish are also very penetrating, they like to burrow into the body of the prey, and then eat their flesh from the inside, so the hagfish is also called "broken belly fish".
The terrifying "broken belly fish"
The hagfish is a hagfish family that first appeared 500 million years ago and is a prehistoric monster with a very long history. Their bodies are mostly pink or white, and their mouths resemble a large suction cup filled with sharp teeth. As can be seen from the name of the hagfish, its eyes have completely degenerated. The hagfish's eyes are hidden under the skin, and it mainly lives in the deep sea area of 100 meters to 1700 meters underwater, so the eyes are of little use to it. Hagfish mainly rely on a keen sense of smell and a few tactile tentacles on the edge of their mouths, which can detect the arrival of predators or prey at a great distance. There are many types of hagfish, and the largest species have been found to be more than a meter long.
Hagfish are ferocious carnivores, eating small plankton, but also attacking larger prey. The hagfish's tentacles are a natural radar that senses the slightest changes in the water, and the slightest movement of the hagfish hides itself and waits for the opportunity. If it is its natural enemy, the hagfish will hide and remain motionless, or bury itself in the soft mud and sand of the seabed, waiting for the other person to leave. If it is delicious prey, the hagfish will carefully close the distance between the two sides, and when the distance is right, the hagfish will tear a hole in the body of the prey with its teeth, or directly drill into the gills of the other party, and then use its whole body muscles to drill into the stomach of the prey.
The hagfish that successfully penetrate the enemy's interior will turn over the river and the sea, while the "parasitic" fish can only struggle in pain, they have no way to force the hagfish out of their stomachs, they can only wait for death in pain. The hagfish is a famous king of stomachs, as long as it is given enough time, it can eat more than 10 times its body weight, and when the prey is hollowed out, the hagfish will break through the skin and drill out of it, leaving only an empty shell for the prey. The hagfish is so cruel that it was once considered one of the most fearsome animals in the ocean, and even sharks would "avoid it" when they saw them.
Fish that are more difficult to pester than sharks
Sharks are the absolute hegemon in the ocean, except for a very small number of whales, it can be said that they can eat whoever they want, but in front of hagfish, sharks also have to weigh their strength, which is not how powerful the hagfish's combat power is, but it has an exclusive secret weapon, that is, the mysterious slime it releases.
It is not difficult to see from that traffic accident that a whole row of cars is stuck with slime, which is the masterpiece of hagfish. Sharks occasionally attack hagfish as prey, and whenever the hagfish is attacked, it will release a large amount of mucus from the body, which has the ability to solidify seawater, and will instantly seal the shark's mouth and nose and its gills, making the shark miserable, and eventually can only give up predation. This defense against the weaknesses of marine life is so little to be solved that hagfish have not changed much since long ago, and they may have found the best defense by then.
Hagfish has more than a hundred mucus glands hidden in its body, which can release a large amount of mucus in an ultra-short time of 0.4 seconds. This mucus quickly expands up to 10,000 times after encountering water, and this mucus contains fibrous components that are difficult to remove from the body. The bite force of the shark is so strong, can't it bite off the hagfish in one bite? Another skill that hagfish rely on to survive is their super soft body. Only a small part of the hagfish's skin and body are connected, and its skin is very tough, which is difficult to bite off in one bite.
Sharks can't solve hagfish, but hagfish may kill sharks. Hagfish are relatively small, can easily burrow into the shark's gills, and then attack the softest part of the shark from the inside, once the hagfish enters the body, the shark can only be slowly eaten. Scientists once found 123 hagfish in the body of a huge cod. They frantically bite the body of the cod on the inside, while the outside of the cod is almost intact. Such a terrible way of eating has only been seen in horror movies. What's even more surprising is that hagfish's bodies have more peculiar functions than people think, their skin can absorb nutrients, and they can breathe through the skin.
Although hagfish are powerful, they usually feed mainly on dead or sick fish and do not risk their lives to attack large fish. And it has become food for some warriors.