As if being ugly wasn’t bad enough

It wasn't until I saw this slide show that I found out about the blobfish. This funny-named fish is probably the most miserable looking animal that I have ever seen, with a “face” worse than that of a Cleveland worker with a bad case of the Mondays. The Psychrolutes marcidus, its scientific name, is a deep-sea creature that inhabits the southwest pacific waters off the coast of Australia. It lives at depths of up to 800 meters. Because the pressure at such depths is so high, normal fish would have to swim to exhaustion not to sink. Their internal gas-filled organs or gas bladders (the evolutionary equivalent of lungs if you wish) would not be efficient in helping them keep their buoyancy. The blobfish survives because the gelatinous material it is made of is slightly less dense than water. The creature has no muscle: it floats for a living and it feeds off drifting mollusks and other organic matter. Even though the blobfish is harmless and inedible it is in risk of becoming extinct due to over-fishing as it frequently gets caught in fishermen’s nets. 

photo: Caters