Talk Like a Pirate Day 2010 may be just a happy memory, but you salty sea dogs still have an excuse to party. The conservation group Whale Times has declared today (October 20) “Hagfish Day” to celebrate all weird and/or ugly denizens of the sea. The group’s website (at www . whaletimes . org/HagfishDay . htm) features a gallery of underwater grotesques and directions for hagfish-related activities, some of them involving copious quantities of slime (a hagfish hallmark). Altogether Muserly, we deem.
Hooray! I love odd sea creatures. My personal favorite may be the cuttlefish.
I like cuttlefish, too. They’re like little submarine helicopters. And they’re smart.
And they’re cute!
Agreed.
“Let us not forget our dear friends, the cuttlefish…”
Cuttlefish rule.
Obligatory xkcd: 520.
How about monkfish? They’re awesomely gross, but despite their nasty appearance, they make a fabulous dinner.
Hagfish are disgusting, ugly, creepy things. But without them, we wouldn’t be here. We’d still be in the ocean, competing with Trilobites while we tried to evolve a jawbone. So cheers to the hagfish!
i personally like those fish that have little lightlike things on them. does anybody know what i’m talking about? i don’t know what they’re called…
Flashlight fish?
I’m pretty sure they’re called angler fish. Although there are many deep-sea fish that use light to attract prey.
As most of you know, I am a fan of sea creatures in general (although especially cephalopods), so hooray! Hagfish!
Oh, Jadestone! You should know!
Recently, an article published in Smithsonian talked about FLYING SQUID. They use jets of water to propel themselves into the air. Now, we only need to genetically modify them into sentient beings that have a self contained air supply….
So that I can be completely traumatized and never, ever leave my house…
Is that better or worse than sharks with balloons (http :// xkcd . com/585/)?
Basking sharks are hideous. They are the second largest species of shark in the world.
Aside: The red spellcheck-line under misspelled words looks really strange right now, for some reason. It’s pretty annoying.
Wheee! Hagfish!
I saw some at the Monterey Aquarium this summer. They were utterly revolting and hideous creatures (i.e. they were awesome).
Seriously, though, a fishkeeper (what do you call someone who isn’t a marine biologist, but cares for fish?) grabbed one and yanked it out of the tank, and slime overflowed onto the floor. Urgle.
Still, I maintain that the cutest sea creatures are mollusks. Just because of the name. Mollusk. Mollusk!
The North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences — among those celebrating Hagfish Day — is currently showing an exhibit called Animal Grossology. The NCMNS website described hagfish as looking “a bit like self-propelled segments of lower intestine.”
I should go to that! I doubt my parents would be particularly thrilled about coming with me, though.
That thought occurred to me, too — about the lack of thrill on the part of parents, I mean, as it would be a very Muserly outing. (I could kick myself for missing the bioluminescence exhibit. Life just got too crazy the last few months.)
Animal Grossology exhibit Kokonvention.
Ooh! I went to that in San Diego!
Oh no! I haven’t been online, so I missed it! Grr…. I love “gross animal science”…
No! I can’r believe I missed Hagfish Day! I hate business…
Um… Just for clarification, I meant being busy, not business…
You mean busy-ness?