They are very unattractive, have a reputation for devouring victims from the inside out and, if attacked, they instantly release litres of repulsive slime. Do hagfish hate modern highway infrastructure or harbour some sort of vendetta against Priuses? What else do you suppose these items may well be used for? We love to consider automobiles with hagfish slime airbags, or giant luggage of dehydrated hagfish slime getting used to take in floodwater. When a hagfish is threatened, muscles contract to squeeze these two types of cells from the slime glands. When a hagfish finds a suitable carcass, it devours the dead fish in two dif… (Phys.org) —Perhaps the worst fate to be had in the sea is to be slimed by the hagfish. It is probably the most unpleasant creature on Earth - the wriggling hagfish that envelopes would-be assailants with a cloud of slime. ! However, despite their repelling habits, Douglas Fudge from the At any given time, a hagfish has … But upon contact with seawater, the protein filaments uncoil and the mucin vesicles rupture, and the thick, clear slime is made. Thread Control in Hagfish. [Figure][1] Hagfish don't score high on the fish charisma scale. To do this, Chaudhary and his colleagues visited the University of Guelph in Canada, where Professor Doug Fudge maintains a large stock of hagfish. The cells rupture and their contents are extruded from the fish, producing a milky, not quite slimy exudate (see image to right). Hagfish have naked, loose-fitting skin (think naked mole rat) and are scavengers who search the ocean floor for dead or dying creatures, burrow inside, and eat their way out. In the cold, dark recesses of ocean floors around the world, hagfish slither around like sea snakes, searching for food.