Chordata · chordates
Atlantic hagfish
Myxine glutinosa
Myxinidae · hagfishesIUCN: Least Concern
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A jawless, eel-like scavenger that burrows into carcasses on the seafloor.
Fun factIn seconds it can fill the water around it with slime, then ties itself in a knot to scrape the slime off.
- Waters
- Northeast US, Northwest Atlantic, Northeast Atlantic
- Depth zone
- Continental shelf, Deep sea & continental slope
- Diet
- Carrion & worms
- Size
- Up to 80 cm
Classification
Chordata › Myxini › Myxinidae
- Kingdom Animalia animals
- Many-celled organisms that eat other living things for energy (heterotrophs)
- Cells have no cell walls
- Most can move at some stage of life
- Clade Bilateria bilateral animals
- Body has a left and right side that mirror each other (bilateral symmetry)
- Head end with concentrated nerves; three tissue layers
- Includes about 99% of all living animal species
- Clade Deuterostomia deuterostomes
- In the embryo, the first opening becomes the anus and the mouth forms second
- Includes echinoderms and chordates
- Phylum Chordata chordates
- At some stage of life: a stiffening rod along the back (notochord)
- A hollow nerve cord along the back (dorsal)
- Slits in the throat (pharyngeal slits) and a tail past the anus
- Subphylum Vertebrata vertebrates
- A skull (cranium) protecting a brain
- Backbone or similar support around the nerve cord
- Includes fishes, amphibians, reptiles, birds, and mammals
- Class Myxini hagfishes
- Hagfish: no jaws and no true backbone
- Eel-like body with slime glands along the sides
- Feed by rasping with tooth-like plates on the tongue
- Family Myxinidae hagfishes
- Hagfish scavenge carcasses on the seafloor
- Genus Myxine
- Species in the same genus are very close relatives and often look alike.
- Species Myxine glutinosa Atlantic hagfish