The water presses in on animals there with more than 100 times the atmospheric pressure we feel on land, making the compressible swim bladders that many surface fish use to control their buoyancy less practical for these deep-sea creatures. Blobby at a depth of between 3,323 and 4,396 feet (1,013 to 1,340 meters) somewhere between New Caledonia and New Zealand, according to the Australian Museum, where the fish currently resides as a specimen.īumbling along the bottom, thousands of feet beneath the waves, the blobfish's world is cold, dark and empty. While trawling the ocean to conduct a biodiversity census, the crew netted Mr. Blobby," as they nicknamed him, along with many other marine species during the Australian-New Zealand NORFANZ research voyage. Researchers collected and photographed "Mr. References to the fish family known as fathead sculpins ( Psychrolutidae) first appeared in the scientific literature more than 150 years ago, but the specific individual destined for viral internet fame surfaced in 2003. Ironically, the animal's marquee feature - its signature flab - is not what sets it apart rather, that's a commonality the fish shares with many other denizens of the deep. Scientists must infer how it spends its days and what it eats from the physical characteristics of the blobfish's environment and the biological features of fellow deep-sea fish. While these days the blobfish has enough face recognition to make other arguably more charismatic creatures envious, researchers know very little about this enigmatic species.
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