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Saturday, July 24, 2010

Extinction threat for world's most miserable animal - the blobfish

No wonder he looks like the world's most miserable fish... this unattractive creature, the inedible blobfish, is in danger of being wiped out.

Sea-ing is believing: The extremely ugly blobfish Sea-ing is believing: The extremely ugly blobfish - picture from Caters News
These sad-looking creatures, which grow up to lengths of 12 inches, live at depths of 900m.
They spend most of their time gently floating around waiting for food to pass in front of them, which sounds like quite a nice life to us!
Because they live so far from the sea surface they're not often seen by humans.
However, increasing levels of deep-sea fishing in Australia and Tasmania for crab and lobster mean that the sulky sea-dwellers are being dragged up with other catches in increasing numbers.
These gelatinous masses may not be much to look at, but the world would be a less interesting place without them, probably, so let's hope the Australians don't kill them off.

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