[Animals] 6 fun facts about the "world's ugliest animal"

[#Steeven.™]

He is the internet's favorite fish, a charmer of the deep with a face that only Mother Earth could love.

Still, the blobfish, a lazy chubby relatively new to science, has bewitched humans, inventing memes, squishy toys, and emoticons inspired by it.

But what do we really know about the smudge fish? Why does he look so taciturn? And what can it teach us about the conservation of species or their secret habitat?

The term 'blur fish' is used to describe a number of species, as well as the broader family of fish known as Psychrolutidae.

For most of us, however, the smudgefish is a particular species (Psychrolutes microporos), the first specimen of which was found by a research ship off the coast of New Zealand in 1983.

Another decade passed before it was formally described and identified. And even now, there are huge gaps in our understanding of this enigmatic sea creature, despite the fact that several other samples have been found in fishing trawls.

The smudge fish became famous after a specimen was photographed in 2003, and its jelly-like appearance made it a gift to internet culture.

Slimy and very easy to anthropomorphize, it was named the world's ugliest animal in a survey by the Ugly Animal Preservation Society, a conservation group that argues it's not just cute creatures that deserve our protection.

The specimen was nicknamed "Mr. Blobby."

 

1. What is a smudge fish?
Before becoming famous as an internet meme, the smudge fish was a scientific curiosity.

From the Psychrolutidae family, it is sometimes called a sculpin or "fat head" (for obvious reasons).

Its po[CENSORED]r appearance, however, can be confusing: it only looks like an '80s dessert when brought to the surface.

Blotfish species live in the deepest corners of the oceans, between 600 and 1,200 meters deep.

Down there, the pressure can be up to 100 times stronger than the atmospheric one you feel right now. That is why the fish adapted to it.

Its body is soft, with loose bones and little muscle. When the fish is caught in the nets and brought to the surface, decompression causes it to expand and its skin relaxes, distorting its features.

And on land or on the deck of a ship, its gelatinous tissue does not support its structure, so it collapses into a mass that looks like a washed jellyfish.

"The picture everyone knows is really gruesome because he's dead," says Simon Watt, the biologist, comedian, and science communicator who created the Ugly Animal Preservation Society.

"In nature, they are not exactly kings or queens of beauty, but they don't seem that depressed."

In the depths of the sea, a blur fish looks like a fish. They have slightly bulbous heads, pronounced black eyes, and feathery pectoral fins. Their greyish pink bodies taper towards the tail a bit like a tadpole.

Blotfish are typically less than 30 cm in length and weigh less than 2 kg.

 

2. How does a smudge fish swim?
With the least possible effort.

Like many deep-sea fish, the blur does not have a swim bladder, the air sac-like organ that helps fish closest to the surface control their buoyancy.

Instead they use their body fat as they are denser than the water they live in.

"It's similar to how oil floats on water. Being high in fat means it makes them more buoyant," says Watt.

Blotfish simply bobs on the water or seabed, staying almost still and using as little energy as possible.

"Being lazy is a survival strategy, and being fat to help be lazy is a survival strategy."

 

3. What do they eat?
Given its lethargy, the smudge fish tries to eat whatever happens in front of them.

Their neutral buoyancy means that they are washed away by the water and when small crustaceans, sea snails, or other edible matter get too close, they become dinner.

This stalking strategy is common among deep-sea predators.

 

4. Where do they live?
The Psychrolutidae family is quite widespread with species found in the Atlantic, Pacific, and Indian Oceans. However, some species of puffer fish, including the nicknamed "Mr. Blobby", are found in fairly small regions.

The Microporous Psychrolutes (and its very close cousin Psychrolutes marcidus) live in the waters near Australia and New Zealand, always at depths greater than 500 m.

 

5. What do the smudgefish hatchlings look like?
There are a number of bogus images on the net, but it is unclear what the blurfish hatchlings actually look like.

Little is known about their behavior because it is difficult to observe any creature when it lives in the dark depths of the ocean.

This includes mating, although marine biologists suggest that, given their limited movement, the pairs could simply cling to each other.

Some species of Psychrolutidae have been observed laying thousands of eggs, often on rocks that they patrol from nearby. It appears that pregnant females cluster and nest close to each other, presumably for protection.

 

6. Conservation of the smudge fish
It is unclear if it is a threatened species, in part because it lives in an alien world so deep that we know little about it.

For example, we don't know how many there are, if they have natural predators, if ocean acidification affects them, or how long they live.

"With the smudge fish, it's questionable whether your species is threatened, but that applies to almost all fish," Watt says.

"It is difficult to understand the territory of a fish. We know the risk posed by trawls."

If this species is confined to the region around Australia and New Zealand, their numbers are unlikely to be huge.

It's hard to know how much damage the po[CENSORED]tion suffers when even a single smearfish ends up in the nets, Watt says.

"We know that everything that lives in the depths tends to have a long life. For example, an orange roughy, which is a fish that we see on tables all over Europe, reaches maturity around 30 years. 30 years earlier for that po[CENSORED]tion to recover. "

Whether in danger or not, effective work has already been done in raising smudgefish awareness, thanks in large part to Watt's survey of the world's ugliest animals and other ongoing projects.

Watt's approach to conservation has an irreverent twist, but the humor uncovers an important fact.

Their website claims that invertebrates, for example, make up 79% of animal life, but are only covered in 11% of the conservation literature.

Ugly animals are less likely to be investigated, much less protected.

"Conservation is so depressing that we needed a groggy way to talk about it," she says.

"People who know the giant panda are already on board. People who have the puffer fish as their spirit animal were not being talked to."