I Present you the Blobfish

When most people think of fish, generally I will about a fish that looks like a "normal" fish, like a guppy or a goldfish maybe. If I want to think more exotic, than I would think of a shark or some cool eel. However, when surfing the net, I found something a bit more exotic...if exotic is the right word.

The fish I found does not really look like a fish that much. It looks more like a mass of slime. Well, slime with a pair of eyes and a nose. At first I did not believe it was an actual fish and thought it was a hoax. I found out later though that it actually exists, and is pretty amazing.

So, without any more delay...I present you the Blobfish( Psychrolutes marcidus) !

  

At first glance, the fish looks admittedly repulsive, and it is hard to appreciate them. However, if one looks into the details of how the fish survives, it is actually pretty amazing. They have adaptations that let them survive in conditions that most other species would implode in. The natural habitat of the Blobfish is in the deep waters of the coast of Australia. At that depth, the pressure is so great that most fish not be able to deal with the massive amounts of pressure being exerted on them. However, the Blobfish has a different sort of anatomy that lets it deal with the pressure.  Henry Reich for Minute Earth: “Unlike most other fish, the ones that live in these depths don’t have gas-filled cavities like swim bladders that would collapse under the extreme pressure. In fact, super-deep water fish often have minimal skeletons and jelly-like flesh, because the only way to combat the extreme pressure of deep water is to have water as your structural support.” So we can forgive these fish for their unsightly appearance as it is this same factor that makes them such masters within the harsh environment of the deep waters.

The picture above shows the fish in its out of water state, where the pressure of the ocean is not giving it a structure. When it is in the water, it actually looks like this:

Clearly, this a unique species of fish, that has amazing adaptations. But before you guys leave though, here are some pictures that I found that gave me a laugh.:) We need to take some comedic value, right?

Citations:

-http://blogs.smithsonianmag.com/smartnews/2013/09/in-defense-of-the-blobfish/