Blobfish
Scientific name: Psychrolutes marcidus
Common name: Blobfish
Regional names: none
By Monte D.
Computer Literacy, Period 4
28 April 2014
Aptos High School
The Blobfish...
Habitat
Blobfish live very deep underwater off the coasts of Australia and Tasmania. They live so deep underwater that no one has ever seen a blobfish in its natural habitat.
Diet
Blobfish have no muscles in their body. To eat, it floats around with its mouth open and hopes that food comes in it. It eats mainly mollusks and sea urchins, but it also eats many other things including its own kids if they float into its mouth.
Predators
The blobfish has no natural known predators. Very often, they get caught in fishermen's nets and die with the rest of the fish. They have acid-like skin that kills whatever eats it. If any thing chooses to try to eat a blobfish, they will probably die from it.
Lifespan
The blobfish’s has an unknown life expectancy, however fish that live in deep water generally tend to live longer lives than other fish. Some deep water fish can live over 100 years! The blobfish might live for a very long time, but no one knows for sure.
Population and Endangered Status
The blobfish gets caught in fishermen's nets often, causing it to have a declining population. The exact population of blobfish is unknown due to the fact that humans never actually see them in their natural habitat, but we believe that they are endangered because of how they get caught in nets.
Because humans have never actually seen a blobfish population, no one know how many there are. Unfortunately, this means that there are no graphs of their population numbers.
My Choice
According to the Ugly Animal Preservation Society, the blobfish is the ugliest animal on Earth today. It was voted to this position over all of the other ugly animals including the proboscis monkey. I thought that this was a cool fact because it was chosen out of the many ugly animals as the ugliest. This makes the blobfish special and important.
Bibliography
Slide #1:citelighter.com
Slide #3:stunninginterestingfacts.com
Slide #4:Lopata, Peg. "Creepy critters of the deep." Faces: People, Places, and Cultures Oct. 2010: 6+. General OneFile. Web. 10 Apr. 2014.
Slide #5:pvlearners.net
Slide #6:wisegeek.com
Slide #7:"Snapshot." Time For Kids (Grades 5-6) 4.4 (2013): 3. MasterFILE Complete. Web. 22 Apr. 2014.
Slide #8:Barber, Elizabeth. "Blobfish 'wins' world's ugliest animal contest." Christian Science Monitor 12 Sept. 2013: N.PAG. MasterFILE Complete. Web. 22 Apr. 2014.