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Meet The Blobfish

Posted by Brendan on May 23rd, 2011

The majestic blobfish is one of Earth's strangest underwater designs. This deep sea fish of the Chordata phylum and Actionpterygii class is almost never seen by humans as it inhabits very deep waters of Australia and Tasmania, and its a primarily sessile creature. The fish which can reach inches of up to 12, remains just above the sea floor lying in wait like a jungle cat. Then with sleek precision it consumes anything that floats into its mouth, the blobfish has almost no muscle thus cannot stalk its prey. The blobfish is able to remain at these dangerous depths due to a unique mechanism that protects it from the underwater pressure. Normally fish have gas bladders, that has the name implies use air or some time of gas in order to control bouyancy. This gas bladder can take in or remove gas as necessary in order to increase or decrease elevation. The blobfish's gelationious mass however has a denisty less than water allowing it to float above the sea floor without a care in the world. Thus the blobfish's strange shape and skin are acutally evolutionary advantages allowing to live without spending much energy at the depths of the sea and occupy this deep water niche. This fish is basically the couch potato of the sea, and its miserable appearance makes it look depressed all of the time as seen here:

Even more depressing about this strange creature is that it's going extinct due to over-fishing. While the blobfish may look like a tasty meal it's actually inedible to humans. The blobfish however is killed as it dragged up by fishermen who trawl the sea bottoms looking for something to sell to the markets. Being dragged up by the net is supposedly a very traumatic experience, and from what is currently known the blobfish can only survive in deep water habitats.

 

 

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