Noun
eellike cyclostome having a tongue with horny teeth in a round mouth surrounded by eight tentacles; feeds on dead or trapped fishes by boring into their bodies
Source: WordNetA hagfish can remove the excess slime, which can suffocate it in a matter of minutes, by tying its own body into an overhand knot, then sliding the knot from its head down to the tail. Source: Internet
In the hagfish, the pouches connect with the pharynx internally and a separate tube which has no respiratory tissue (the pharyngocutaneous duct) develops beneath the pharynx proper, expelling ingested debris by closing a valve at its anterior end. Source: Internet
Differences between hagfish species provide another example of adaptation to deep-sea pressure through specialized protein adaptations. Source: Internet
Lampreys have only two semicircular canals, with the horizontal canal being absent, while hagfish have only a single, vertical, canal. Source: Internet
Often dubbed “slime eels” or “snot snakes,” hagfish might be homely scavenging bottom feeders, but they have at least one superpower: A single five-ounce hagfish can churn out one liter of the sticky concoction in less than a second. Source: Internet
Molecular analysis since 1992 has suggested that the hagfish are most closely related to lampreys, citation and so also are vertebrates in a monophyletic sense. Source: Internet