100-million-year-old Hagfish complete with slime kit discovered

FoxNews.com/Science ^ | Jan 24, 2019 | Mindy Weisberger Senior Writer | LiveScience

[ETL]

Scientists recently discovered a rare and important hagfish fossil that includes traces of preserved slime dating to 100 million years ago.

Eyeless, jawless hagfish — still around today — are bizarre, eel-like, carrion-eating fishes that lick the flesh off dead animals using their spiky tongue-like structures. But their most well-known feature is the sticky slime that they expel for protection.

And now, scientists know that hagfish slime is robust enough to leave traces in the fossil record, finding remarkable evidence in a fossilized hagfish skeleton excavated in Lebanon. ..."

The fossil dates to the late Cretaceous period (145.5 million to 65 million years ago), and measures 12 inches (31 centimeters) in length. Researchers dubbed it Tethymyxine tapirostrum: Tethymyxine comes from "Tethys" (referencing the Tethys Sea) and the Latinized Greek word "myxnios," which means "slimy fish." Tapirostrom translates as "snout of a tapir," and refers to the fish's elongated nose, the study authors wrote.

Hagfish have been around for about 500 million years, yet there is next to no trace of them as fossils, primarily because their long, sinuous bodies lack hard skeletons, said lead study author Tetsuto Miyashita, a postdoctoral fellow with the Department of Organismal Biology and Anatomy at the University of Chicago.

"Basically, it's like a swimming sausage," Miyashita told Live Science. "It's a bag of skin with a lot of muscles in it. They don't have any bones or hard teeth inside them, so it's really difficult for them to get preserved into the fossil record."

[SunkenCiv]

Thanks colorado tanker.

• The Bothy Band- Old Hag You Have Killed Me (full album)

[mass55th]

"There’s a future for those critters at CNN."

Send a crate to Pelosi.