The hagfish, otherwise known as a slime eel, is an eel like fish that lives on the ocean floor and now you can see one at the Sapphire Coast Marine Discovery Centre in Eden. 

The hagfish has a few special features, the first being that it has no backbone or any other bones in its body besides a cartilaginous skull.

They are blind but they find their food using their sense of smell and touch. They have barbels around their mouth that have sensory abilities.

Once they have located the prey they bite in and wiggle their way inside the prey and then proceed to eat the intestines and then the flesh, leaving nothing but a bag of skin and bones. Hagfish also have three hearts.

“The hagfish is also known as the slime eel and this is because they produce slime. Makes sense but they don’t just slime a little bit, these creatures have pores all along their body that will ooze slime if they feel threatened and one hagfish can fill a 20L bucket with slime within seconds,” Marine Education Officer for the Sapphire Coast Marine Discovery Centre Jillian Browning said. 

“Funnily enough they will “sneeze” when their nostrils clog with their own slime. The slime is a defence mechanism and if they are bitten the slime will actually gag the predator and they will leave the hagfish alone.”

Despite their grotesque appearance and strange behaviors they have remained very much the same for the past 300 million years.

“Here at the Sapphire Coast Marine Discovery Centre we have an albino hagfish for people to come and see,” Ms Browning said excitedly. 

“Hag fish are usually a grey colour but Albie, nicknamed from albino, is all white with red eye spots, indicating that it is a true albino specimen, this is quite rare within hagfish.”

The Sapphire Coast Marine Discovery Centre is open Monday to Friday from 10am to 3pm. Entry is $10 for adults and only $5 for kids.