Natures wonders: slimy hagfish (Introduction)

by David Turell , Tuesday, January 22, 2019, 00:36 (2131 days ago) @ David Turell

A weird relative of eels:

https://phys.org/news/2019-01-fossilized-slime-million-year-old-hagfish-vertebrate.html

"Modern-day hagfish are known for their bizarre, nightmarish appearance and unique defense mechanism. They don't have eyes, or jaws or teeth to bite with, but instead use a spiky tongue-like apparatus to rasp flesh off dead fish and whales at the bottom of the ocean. When harassed, they can instantly turn the water around them into a cloud of slime, clogging the gills of would-be predators.

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"Keratin, as it turns out, is a crucial part of what makes the hagfish slime defense so effective. Hagfish have a series of glands along their bodies that produce tiny packets of tightly-coiled keratin fibers, lubricated by mucus-y goo. When these packets hit seawater, the fibers explode and trap the water within, turning everything into shark-choking slop. The fibers are so strong that when dried out they resemble silk threads; they're even being studied as possible biosynthetic fibers to make clothes and other materials."

Comment: If the animal is blind and defenseless it has to have this mechanism or something similar to defend itself. It had to appear with all of these attributes present. It must have been designed/