WHAT THE HELL is a HAGFISH?

Get you barf bags ready because hagfish are super disgusting and gross! Ever wonder why they are so incredibly repulsive? Start with a bonafide raunch-dawg name like hagfish, end with the rancid slime these creatures omit and you will start to get the picture.

HAGGARD HAGFISH!

These oversized sea worms are jawless, they are a close relatives of the lamprey aka shark sucker. Their mouths contain rake-like teeth which they use to ravage shrimps, mollusks and fish. Hags will even eat dead fish. GROSS! Some commercial fishermen can stand the hags because they feed on coveted money-making groundfish stock.

Hagfish are the most primitive of all vertebrates, both living and extinct. Nasty ass hagfish are true Lovecraftian horrors of the sea.

Watch yo back.

Hag-sters are an important animal for researchers because they haven't evolved in more than 300 million years. Save a spot for the hagfish at your family reunion this year because we are all living ancestors of the hagfish.

Now I know where Great Aunt Maybel gets her good looks from...

WOoHOoooo!

The rudimentary eyeballs of the hagfish leave it nearly blind, at least they have highly functional barbel smellers which they use to navigate and stalk their prey.

Hagfish are a by-catch of the New England ground fishery yet nobody around here dares to eat them. I read that in Korea the chef will keep a live hagfish in a tank and bother it with a stick every once in a while to collect the fibrous slime that it produces as a defense mechanism. Their slime is used dishes they way an American chef might use egg white. Hey, I don't make this shit up! Click here to watch a fascinating hagfish slime-ing video.