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Eyeless , jawless hagfish — still around today — are bizarre , eel - like , carrion - wipe out fishes that lick the flesh off stagnant beast using their spiky glossa - similar structures . But their most well - know feature is the sticky ooze that they expel for protection .
And now , scientists know that hagfish slime is robust enough to leave traces in the fossil platter , finding remarkable evidence in a fossilized hagfish skeleton excavated in Lebanon . This new find is also prompting researchers to redefine the hagfish ’s relationship to other ancient Pisces and to all animal with gumption . [ photograph : The Freakiest Looking Pisces ]
Tethymyxine tapirostrumis a 100-million-year-old, 12-inch-long fish embedded in a slab of Cretaceous period limestone from Lebanon, and is believed to be the first detailed fossil of a hagfish.
Hagfish fossils are scarce , and this specimen — an " definitive dodo hagfish " — is exceptionally detailed with peck of soft tissue preserved , scientist reported in a field of study publish online today ( Jan. 21 ) in the journalProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences(PNAS ) .
The dodo dates to the lateCretaceousperiod(145.5 million to 65 million days ago ) , and measures 12 inches ( 31 centimeters ) in length . Researchers dubbed itTethymyxine tapirostrum : Tethymyxinecomes from " Tethys " ( cite the Tethys Sea ) and the Latinized Greek word " myxnios , " which means " slimy fish . “Tapirostromtranslates as " rostrum of a tapir , " and refers to the fish ’s elongate olfactory organ , the study authors wrote .
“A swimming sausage”
Hagfishhave been around for about 500 million year , yet there is next to no trace of them as fossils , primarily because their retentive , sinuous bodies miss hard skeletons , said lead study generator Tetsuto Miyashita , a postdoctoral fellow with the Department of Organismal Biology and Anatomy at the University of Chicago .
" Basically , it ’s like a swimming blimp , " Miyashita told Live Science . " It ’s a udder of skin with a peck of muscularity in it . They do n’t have any osseous tissue or concentrated teeth inside them , so it ’s really difficult for them to get maintain into the fossil track record . "
When menace , modern hagfish produce a type of mucous secretion from peculiar guck secretor distributed along their bodies . As keratin fibers — the stuff that makes up our fingernail and hair — in the mucus encounter piddle , they tousle and expound the goop glob to about 10,000 times its original size in just a few ten percent of a secondment , investigator report in another survey , published Jan. 16 in the journalRoyal Society Interface .
Hagfish that lived 100 million years ago had the same slime-producing abilities as modern hagfish.
Hagfish slimeis a sticky mess that deters predators by clogging their lamella , and this slimy defensive measure is even effective on land , as a number of luckless motorists ascertain in 2017 . Copious , gooey hagfish slime temporarilyshut down part of a highwayin Oregon , after a truck tip over and plunge its payload of hagfish — 7,500 pounds ( 3,400 kilograms ) — onto the route .
And now , scientists know that this slimy defense was in place 100 million years ago , perhaps used to discourage Cretaceous marine carnivores such as ichthyosaurs , plesiosaurus and ancient sharks , Miyashita said .
Slime scans
The PNAS study authors study the hagfish fogy using synchrotron scanning — a type of envision technology that bombards objects with highly energized and polarized particles — and they detected chemical signatures of ceratin fibers concentrated in more than 100 stead .
Its front in the fossil suggested that ancient slime eels during this period had already evolved their slimy superpower , according to the study .
This rare find also provide a clearer picture of where these oddball , slime - producing fishbelong on the tree of life , perhaps helping to settle a scientific debate spanning centuries , Miyashita allege .
Detail from a synchrotron scanning (bottom) of theTethymyxine tapirostrumhagfish fossil (top) revealed traces of chemical left behind when the soft tissues fossilized, including signs of keratin that indicate a series of slime-producing glands along the body.
Hagfish are so weird that they have long been take care as " the unmated ace out " on the fish family Sir Herbert Beerbohm Tree , the sole occupants of a lone branch , Miyashita tell . Because their fossils are so scarce , it ’s unclear how long ago hagfish diverged fromthe common ancestorthey portion out with all other fish ( and subsequently , all craniate ) .
But the new fossil shows that hagfish 100 million yr ago were unco similar to hagfish today , suggesting that their specialized lineament accumulate gradually over prison term . If so , rather than being a more crude " cousin " to other Pisces , hagfish should be grouped together with long - bodied lamprey eel , the study author cover . In clarify these human relationship , scientists develop a more detailed pic of how beast with rachis evolved , Miyashita said .
" Where we lay hagfish prepare a difference to how we think about our own ascendent , more than 500 million years ago , " he added .
Originally published onLive Science .
