Blobfish

Blobfish is a deep sea fish of the family Psychrolutidae. It inhabits the deep waters off the coasts of mainland Australia and Tasmania, as well as the waters of New Zealand. Blobfish are typically shorter than 30 cm. They live at depths between 600 and 1,200 m (2,000 and 3,900 ft) where the pressure is several dozen times higher than at sea level, which would likely make gas bladders inefficient for maintaining buoyancy. Instead, the flesh of the blobfish is primarily a gelatinous mass with a density slightly less than water; this allows the fish to float above the sea floor without expending energy on swimming. Its relative lack of muscle is not a disadvantage as it primarily swallows edible matter that floats in front of it such as deep-ocean crustaceans. Blobfish are often caught as bycatch in bottom trawling nets. Scientists now fear the blobfish could become an endangered species because of deep-ocean trawling. The blobfish, however, only looks like a blob when it is out of water. It hasn’t actually been photographed in the water (since it lives in such deep waters), but scientists believe it looks just like its cousin, the blob sculpin (Psychrolutes phrictus) with a large head, a tapered body, a flat tail and spikes instead of scales. The reason it changes so drastically in appearance is because of the change in pressure. Out of water, the air pressure decreases exponentially and so the blobfish is reduced to… well, a blob. In contrast, humans, too, would be reduced to blobs (or worse) when subjected to the high pressure that the blobfish is used to. Then we’d be the ugliest creatures on earth.