Found on muddy bottoms where they hide in the mud. Slime is used for defense. Feeds chiefly on dead and dying fish of varying species by boring into the body and consuming viscera and musculature. Chiefly nocturnal. Its eggs are few in number about 19-30 and large (20-25 mm), the horny shell has a cluster of anchor-tipped filaments at each end.

 The common hagfish Myxine glutinosa is a long, slender, eel-like fish. It is easy recognised by its fin-like fold of skin running continously right around the tail and forward on the lower surface of the body. The hagfish has a single gill pore on either side, just forward of the beginning of the ventral finfold. It has a jawless, lipless mouth that is star-shaped when closed. At the tip of the snout it has a single nasal aperture. There are barbels around the mouth and nasal regions. Myxine glutinosa can vary in colour possibly according to seabed type but is often grayish brown or reddish gray.Myxine glutinosa is a scavenger feeding mainly on dead fish. It is completely blind and finds its food by its greatly specialized olfactory sense. It has a peculiar habit of pouring out slime, from mucus sacs near the abdomen, in disproportionate quantities to its size (Jørgensen et al., 1998).

European waters (ERMS scope), FAO fishing area 18, Gulf of Maine, Gulf of St. Lawrence, Hudson Strait, North West Atlantic, Portuguese Exclusive Economic Zone, Spanish Exclusive Economic Zone, Swedish Exclusive Economic Zone, United Kingdom Exclusive Economic Zone

North Atlantic: Murmansk to the Mediterranean Sea; Greenland to USA. Absent in eastern Mediterranean and Black Sea. Only hagfish in the Northeast Atlantic.

There are two populations from the North Atlantic Ocean of this species. In the eastern North Atlantic, from Murmansk (Russia) to northern Morocco, and the western Mediterranean Sea (north Morocco, Algeria, and northern Adriatic Sea, but probably occurs along all coastal regions of western Mediterranean). In the western North Atlantic, from Greenland to Florida, including a few records in the Gulf of Mexico (off Yucatán and Florida).

Western Atlantic from Greenland to New York

Canada

Origin: Native

Regularity: Regularly occurring

Currently: Present

Confidence: Confident

Type of Residency: Year-round

Western Baltic Sea, North Sea, Mediterranean Sea, Eastern North Atlantic: Barents Sea to Gibraltar; Western North Atlantic: Davis Strait to Florida.

Arctic seas; both coasts of the north Atlantic; Murman Coast and northern Norway south regularly to the Irish Sea, rarely to Morocco; northern part of Davis Strait, south to the latitude of Cape Fear, North Carolina.

Maximum size: 600 mm TL

to 80 cm TL.

Jawless mouth, single nasal aperture, only a single pair of external gill openings, no operculum or covering fold of skin. Grayish or reddish brown above, either plain. Variations in color correspond to the color of the sea bottom.

demersal; non-migratory; marine; depth range 30 - 1200 m (Ref. 31276)

Habitat and Ecology

Systems

• Marine

Found at depths of 40- 1200m over muddy bottoms.

benthic

Depth range based on 8442 specimens in 1 taxon.
Water temperature and chemistry ranges based on 4413 samples.

Environmental ranges
  Depth range (m): -9 - 1044
  Temperature range (°C): -0.070 - 22.025
  Nitrate (umol/L): 1.402 - 23.955
  Salinity (PPS): 27.525 - 36.240
  Oxygen (ml/l): 3.207 - 7.862
  Phosphate (umol/l): 0.253 - 1.806
  Silicate (umol/l): 0.987 - 25.595

Graphical representation

Depth range (m): -9 - 1044

Temperature range (°C): -0.070 - 22.025

Nitrate (umol/L): 1.402 - 23.955

Salinity (PPS): 27.525 - 36.240

Oxygen (ml/l): 3.207 - 7.862

Phosphate (umol/l): 0.253 - 1.806

Silicate (umol/l): 0.987 - 25.595
 
Note: this information has not been validated. Check this *note*. Your feedback is most welcome.

Habitat Type: Marine

 The hagfish is a demersal species that can usually be found on muddy bottoms hiding in the mud, potentially down to depths of over 1000 m.

Depth: 40 - 1200m.
From 40 to 1200 meters.

Habitat: demersal. Found on muddy bottom. Feeds chiefly on dead and dying fish of varying species by boring into the body and consuming viscera and musculature. Chiefly nocturnal. Its eggs are few in number about 19-30 and large (20-25 mm), the horny shell has a cluster of anchor-tipped filaments at each end.

Demersal; marine; depth range 40-1200 m. Muddy bottoms.

Non-Migrant: No. All populations of this species make significant seasonal migrations.

Locally Migrant: No. No populations of this species make local extended movements (generally less than 200 km) at particular times of the year (e.g., to breeding or wintering grounds, to hibernation sites).

Locally Migrant: No. No populations of this species make annual migrations of over 200 km.

Found on soft, muddy bottoms; requires high salinity (at least 30 ppt) and low temperature (below 12°C), conditions usually found in deeper waters (Ref. 5951). Feeds chiefly on dead and dying fish of varying species by boring into the body and consuming viscera and musculature. Food includes marine invertebrates such as polychaete worms and crustaceans (shrimp, Pandalus borealis, an important food item) (Ref. 5951). Chiefly nocturnal.

Feeds chiefly on dead and dying fish of varying species by boring into the body and tissue.

Copulatory organ absent. The gonads of hagfishes are situated in the peritoneal cavity. The ovary is found in the anterior portion of the gonad, and the testis is found in the posterior part. The animal becomes female if the cranial part of the gonad develops or male if the caudal part undergoes differentiation. If none develops, then the animal becomes sterile. If both anterior and posterior parts develop, then the animal becomes a functional hermaphrodite. However, hermaphroditism being characterised as functional needs to be validated by more reproduction studies (Ref. 51361 ). Probably breed throughout the year in deep water (Ref. 35388).

Functional hermaphrodite. Has 19-30 large eggs, each enclosed in a horny capsule.

Slime and fibers protect: hagfish
 

Glands of hagfish protect it from predators by secreting a complex material of fibers and rapid water-absorbing slime.

   
  "Hagfishes are known for producing large volumes of slime when stressed. Their slime is believed to act as a defence mechanism against gill-breathing predators, as it has been shown to reduce water flow over the gills of fish. Hagfish slime is composed of two interacting components, slime thread skeins and mucin vesicles, which are both released from glands along the ventrolateral length of the animal. Each slime gland is surrounded by striated muscle and a connective tissue capsule, and contains large numbers of gland thread cells and gland mucous cells. Gland thread cells contain skeins of tightly coiled polymers rich in intermediate filaments, while gland mucous cells produce vesicles containing mucins, a class of glycoproteins. Both cell types rupture partially as they pass through the slime gland duct, causing each to lose its plasma membrane, and releasing both thread skeins and mucin vesicles into the external environment. The mucin vesicles are released by holocrine secretion rather than the more typical mechanism of mucus secretion through fusion of vesicles with the membrane of the mucous cell and release of mucin granules by exocytosis. In this way, the mucin vesicles remain intact until they come into contact with seawater in the external environment. 

"The mature slime is formed when exudate released from the hagfish contacts convectively mixing seawater. Agitation during mixing causes the thread skeins to uncoil to lengths of 10–17 cm, providing a large surface area to which the mucins released from the ruptured vesicles can attach. The fully formed slime is a complex network capable of confining seawater to channels between the slime threads and ruptured mucins like a fine sieve. The interaction between the thread skeins and ruptured mucins is critical for the production of the mature slime." (Herr et al. 2010:1092; citations removed from quote)

 
"When agitated, Atlantic hagfish (Myxine glutinosa) produce large quantities of slime that consists of hydrated bundles of protein filaments and membrane-bound mucin vesicles from numerous slime glands. When the slime exudate contacts seawater, the thread bundles unravel and the mucin vesicles swell and rupture. Little is known about the mechanisms of vesicle rupture in seawater and stabilization within the gland, although it is believed that the vesicle membrane is permeable to most ions except polyvalent anions. We hypothesized that the most abundant compounds within the slime gland exudate have a stabilizing effect on the mucin vesicles. To test this hypothesis, we measured the chemical composition of the fluid component of hagfish slime exudate and conducted functional assays with these solutes to test their ability to keep the vesicles in a condensed state. We found K+ concentrations that were elevated relative to plasma, and Na+, Cl– and Ca2+ concentrations that were considerably lower. Our analysis also revealed high levels of methylamines such as trimethylamine oxide (TMAO), betaine and dimethylglycine, which had a combined concentration of 388 mmol l–1 in the glandular fluid. In vitro rupture assays demonstrated that both TMAO and betaine had a significant effect on rupture, but neither was capable of completely abolishing mucin swelling and rupture, even at high concentrations. This suggests that some other mechanism such as the chemical microenvironment within gland mucous cells, or hydrostatic pressure is responsible for stabilization of the vesicles within the gland." (Herr et al. 2010:1092) 


"Hagfishes are benthic marine protovertebrates that secrete copious quantities  of slime when threatened. The slime originates as a  two-component glandular exudate comprised of coiled bundles of  cytoskeletal intermediate filaments (thread skeins) and mucin vesicles.  Holocrine secretion of the slime into seawater results in  the rapid deployment of both fibrous and mucin components, resulting  in about a liter of dilute slime. Deployment of the thread  skeins involves their unraveling in a fraction of a second from  a 150 µm-long ellipsoid bundle to a thread that is 100x longer. We hypothesized that thread  skein deployment requires both vigorous hydrodynamic mixing  and the presence of mucin vesicles, both of which are  required for whole slime deployment. Here we provide evidence  that mixing and mucin vesicles are indeed crucial for skein  unraveling. Specifically, we show that mucin vesicles mixed  into seawater swell and elongate into high-aspect ratio mucin  strands that attach to the thread skeins, transmit hydrodynamic  forces to them and effect their unraveling by loading them  in tension. Our discovery of mucin strands in hagfish slime not  only provides a mechanism for the rapid deployment of thread skeins  in vivo, it also helps explain how hagfish slime is able to  trap such impressive volumes of seawater via viscous  entrainment. We believe that the deployment of thread skeins via  their interaction with shear-elongated mucins represents a  unique mechanism in biology and may lead to novel  technologies for transmitting hydrodynamic forces to  microscale particles that would typically be immune to such  forces." (Winegard & Fudge 2010:1235)
  Learn more about this functional adaptation.

The following is a representative barcode sequence, the centroid of all available sequences for this species.


There are 3 barcode sequences available from BOLD and GenBank.  Below is a sequence of the barcode region Cytochrome oxidase subunit 1 (COI or COX1) from a member of the species.  See the BOLD taxonomy browser for more complete information about this specimen and other sequences.


Download FASTA File

Barcode of Life Data Systems (BOLDS) Stats
Public Records: 6
Specimens with Barcodes: 15
Species With Barcodes: 1

Canada

Rounded National Status Rank: NNR - Unranked

Rounded Global Status Rank: GNR - Not Yet Ranked

Population

Population Trend

Least Concern (LC)

Major Threats

Conservation Actions

fisheries: of no interest

Comments: This species, as previously recognized, is assumed to occur across the North Atlantic Ocean, but Wisner and McMillan (1995) provided diagnostic characters to distinguish a western Atlantic species, Myxine limosa Girard, 1859, and an eastern Atlantic species. However, the results of Martini, Lesser and Heiser (1998) did not support a clean division between North Atlantic populations of M. glutinosa, and they recommended "that until and unless molecular data indicate otherwise, the species name M. glutinosa be retained as encompassing both eastern and western North Atlantic populations" (Nelson et al. 2004).