Blobfish: Are They Really the Ugliest Sea Creature?

Most of us who have been on the internet for a while would most probably have seen an image of the blobfish, which at best looks like sad Ziggy  or an "unhappy internal organ" , and at worst, the ugliest creature on Earth.

The affectionately-called "Mr. Blobby" is a specimen caught off New Zealand's coast. The picture was taken by Kerryn Parkinson in 2003 while she was with the NORFANZ expedition. In 2013, the fish won a poll online as the ugliest creature in the world, and the fish gained the honor of being the official mascot of the Ugly Animal Preservation Society.

The ghoulish appearance of the blobfish may have landed it on many "ugliest animals on Earth" lists. Recently however, its reputation proved to be undeserved. The EV Nautilus is a research vessel that has filmed the animal for the first time in its home. In the video, the blobfish looks like a pretty normal fish after all, when seen in its natural habitat, which are the deep seas off New Zealand, Tasmania, and Australia. This shows that judging fishes out of the water is not always fair.

Blobfishes (Psychrolutes marcidus, Psychrolutes spp.) live at the dark depths of 600-1,200 meters (or 2,000-3,900 feet) below sea level. They are never seen above 300 meters (or 985 feet) in depth, except when they have unwillingly been caught and dragged out to the surface by fishermen and scientists. The blobfishes we see out of the water look like gelatinous masses because they normally live in depths of very high pressures, and when brought on land they actually suffer from decompression damage. They look like blobs because they are decompressed.

These deep-sea fishes have adapted well to life under little light and extreme crushing pressure. They survive by having jelly-like flesh and soft bones that let them avoid being cracked of crushed by the pressures under the ocean. They also lack a swim bladder, a cavity filled with gas or air present in most fishes. Other fishes use the swim bladder to control buoyancy. The blobfish lacks this organ because it would only collapse under extreme pressure in the deep. Instead, their gelatinous flesh, which is a little less dense compared to seawater, helps them float, as it.

Their lack of natural structural body support means they actually depend on the pressure of the deep sea to hold their body together. But when forcibly brought to the surface, their body experiences a rapid drop in pressure, and they die as they expand and turn into a messy blob. In their natural habitat, however, the blobfish is not blobby at all. In fact, their appearance in the deep is actually quite like a regular fish.

When a pair of live blobfishes was filmed, the scientists observed that they perform nest-guarding. This behavior has been noted for the first time in a deep-sea fish species. Blobfish can lay an estimated 100,000 eggs, only 1% of which will survive to adulthood. As ambush predators, they stay still on the ocean floor and can guard their eggs (if they have a nest) and wait for passing prey at the same time.