The blobfish (Psychrolutes marcidus) 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 30Â cm (12Â in). They live at depths between 600 and 1,200Â m (2,000 and 3,900Â ft) where the pressure is 60 to 120 times as great as 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.
The popular impression of the blobfish as bulbous and gelatinous is partially an artifact of the decompression damage done to specimens when they are brought to the surface from the extreme depths in which they live. In their natural environment, blobfish appear more typical of their superclass Osteichthyes (bony fish).
In popular culture
- The musician and author Michael Hearst featured a composition titled "Blobfish", inspired by the animal, on his 2012 album Songs For Unusual Creatures, and subsequently created a blobfish episode for his PBS Digital series.
- In September 2013 the blobfish was voted the "World's Ugliest Animal", based on photographs of decompressed specimens, and adopted as the mascot of the Ugly Animal Preservation Society, in an initiative "dedicated to raising the profile of some of Mother Nature’s more aesthetically challenged children".
- The March 12, 2016, and March 11, 2017, episodes of Saturday Night Live featured sketches in which Kate McKinnon played a very unattractive mermaid who was "65% blobfish".
- The New York Daily News published a side by side picture of U.S. Senator Ted Cruz with a blobfish.
References
External links
- Deep-sea creatures in Te Ara: The Encyclopedia of New Zealand
