The hagfish has a bizarre way of fending off predators: It secretes a slime mass that can immobilize vast amounts of water. Any fish that attempts to attack the hagfish will likely suffocate on the slime.
This creature and its slime caught the attention of Simon Kuster, a researcher at ETH Zurich, after he saw a BBC documentary about the Atlantic hagfish (Myxine glutinosa).
via GIPHY
“As a chemist and material scientist, I couldn’t help but wonder what this slime consists of and what factors allow to immobilize such enormous amounts of water,” says Kuster.
Kuster is supervising an effort to figure out how hagfish form the slime, its structure, and how to recreate it.
Continue reading to learn what the researchers have discovered so far.
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