Speaker 1: Welcome to brain Stuff production of iHeart Radio. Hey brain Stuff,
Speaker 1: Lauren vog O bomb here, it's probably for the best.
Speaker 1: The smooth headed blobfish a scientific classification Psychroluti's microporous, doesn't
Speaker 1: speak English and lives about three thousand, three hundred feet
Speaker 1: that's a thousand meters under the ocean. Because it was
Speaker 1: voted the world's ugliest animal by the Ugly Animal Preservation Society,
Speaker 1: it was in fondness, but it still might have stung.
Speaker 1: The blobfish's disgruntled visage became an overnight international sensation in
Speaker 1: two thousand three when the North Fans Research Expedition pulled
Speaker 1: up a large pink blobfish off the northwest coast of
Speaker 1: New Zealand with a broad, smooth forehead, floppy snout in wide,
Speaker 1: downturned mouth. It resembled the cartoon character Ziggy after a
Speaker 1: month long bender or Teddy from Bob's Burgers. After the
Speaker 1: same pick your cultural reference to make matters not better.
Speaker 1: It had a parasitic cope pod hanging out of its mouth.
Speaker 1: The crew called it Mr Blobby Stepped, a now famous photo.
Speaker 1: Some would go so far to call it a mugshot
Speaker 1: of this bulbous fish out of water. Part of the
Speaker 1: blobfish is charm if you want to call it. That
Speaker 1: lies in the Uncanny valley. Its face looks sort of human,
Speaker 1: but not quite. But here's the thing, we were never
Speaker 1: meant to see the blobfish like this. We spoke with
Speaker 1: Gareth Fraser, a professor in the Department of Biology at
Speaker 1: the University of Florida who studies the evolutionary development of
Speaker 1: marine fishes. He said, blobfish are pretty normal looking underwater.
Speaker 1: They only really become a blob when they transition from
Speaker 1: the pressure at depth to the surface. In my opinion,
Speaker 1: they were awarded the ugliest animal status unjustly. So why
Speaker 1: is the blobfish so blobby? It's actually a very clever adaptation.
Speaker 1: At the extreme depths of the blobfish calls home, they
Speaker 1: go about their business experiencing about dred and twenty times
Speaker 1: the pressure we do on dry land. Because of this,
Speaker 1: they don't need very much bone or muscle to give
Speaker 1: their bodies form. They just let the pressure of the
Speaker 1: bottom of the ocean do all that work for them.
Speaker 1: But up here in the air, there's nothing to keep
Speaker 1: a blobfish's body from melting into a formless globular puddle.
Speaker 1: Terra firma is definitely not where the blobfish shines. But
Speaker 1: under the sea, the blobfish's jello like flesh is highly useful.
Speaker 1: Lots of other fish can keep themselves at their preferred
Speaker 1: depth thanks to handy little gas filled sacks called swim bladders,
Speaker 1: but in the high pressures of the deep sea, a
Speaker 1: swim bladder would just burst. The blobfish found a work around.
Speaker 1: Their flesh has a buoyant, jellylike consistency that keeps them
Speaker 1: cruising around at the depth at which they're most comfortable.
Speaker 1: Although very little is known about the blobfish's life history,
Speaker 1: another blobbish aspect of this animal is that it doesn't
Speaker 1: seem to move around very much or have very many friends. Remember,
Speaker 1: they have very little muscles, so it's not like they're
Speaker 1: the most ferocious predators of the deep sea. Nobody has
Speaker 1: ever seen a blobfish eat, but scientists think that they
Speaker 1: most likely enjoy a diet of whatever just floats into
Speaker 1: their mouths. In addition, every blobfish ever spotted by researchers
Speaker 1: has been alone. They don't seem to school up, and
Speaker 1: scientists are not sure how they reproduce, or how often
Speaker 1: they encounter others of their kind. The scarcity of blobfish
Speaker 1: in their known habitat has some scientists concerned. Although it's
Speaker 1: possible they're being caught up in trawling nets at that depth,
Speaker 1: it's not likely those nuts are big, but not that big.
Speaker 1: But poses a bigger threat to the blob fish in
Speaker 1: the long term is rising ocean temperatures. Blobfish seem to
Speaker 1: need to live in very deep cold water, which will
Speaker 1: be harder to find as ocean temperatures rise. By the way,
Speaker 1: not everyone finds the blobfish is uncanny, seemingly frowning, head ugly.
Speaker 1: Several stuffed animal manufacturers make arguably adorable blobfish toys, and
Speaker 1: the house stuff Works editorial Stuff wants you to know
Speaker 1: that you could buy enough of them to fill your
Speaker 1: bathtub for just six and fifty dollars. We bring you
Speaker 1: the facts. Today's episode was written by Jesselin Shields and
Speaker 1: produced by Tyler Clang. Brain Stuff is a production of
Speaker 1: I Heart Radios How Stuff Works. For more in this
Speaker 1: and lots of other uncanny topics, visit our home planet
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