Blob Sculpin
You’ve probably come across a picture of a blobfish and dismissed it as some prop for a movie about the world’s saddest blob. We’re here to tell you that it exists and lives at a depth of about 3900 feet where the pressure is 118 times higher than that at sea level. They have no skeleton, no real muscles or even a gas bladder that most fish use for buoyancy. It is simply made up of a jelly-like substance, which is really good news for the blobfish since this means that the high pressure doesn’t crush the fish. Their flesh is less dense than water, so the blobfish naturally hovers above the ocean floor.
Even though it looks ridiculous out of water with a nose and droopy mouth scientists predict that they actually look fairly normal underwater like its cousin, the “blob sculpin”. Since they have no teeth scientists believe that they feed on crabs, sea urchins, sea pens and shellfish by opening their mouth and sucking in whatever floats by. Due to the harsh conditions and the depth they live at little is known about them. If you were to visit one you would most likely look like a blobfish before you got to it. This is why no one has been able to document a live blobfish up to date and why we are not certain about their feeding habits, life span or reproduction.
The blobfish rose to fame back in 2013 when it was voted as the world’s ugliest animal. This doesn’t stop it from bravely protecting the world’s most aesthetically unfortunate animals by being the mascot for the Ugly Animal Preservation Society (Yes they exist).
A café dedicated to the fish is supposed to open this year in London and as for now we have no information on how they plan on transferring and housing an animal that requires extreme pressure to survive. Lets hope that the three blobfish they plan on keeping at the café helps us understand these marvellous creatures better and perhaps helps us to protect them better since for now they are considered endangered.