– With a shape like a drop of water, Blobfish has milky white or pink skin but no scales. The teardrop fish was also voted the ugliest animal in the world in 2013.
This fish has the scientific name Psychrolutes marcidus, where the word “psychroloutes” in Greek means “cold bath”. The body of Blobfish is strange and fragile like a drop of water, so they are named teardrop fish. Fish have milky white or pink skin, but their face looks like that of a fat man. Along with the onion-shaped nose, they are honored to be voted ‘world’s ugliest animal’ and are also the mascot of the Ugly Animal Conservation Association.
Blobfish live deep in the temperate seabed between 600m and 1,200m with seawater salinity of 33°S, where the pressure is dozens of times higher than sea level
.When mature, waterdrop fish reach a maximum length of 30cm, their body is mainly a gelatinous mass and is lighter than water, so it can float on the sea floor and withstand this pressure. Droplets have the ability to swell to maintain buoyancy so they can only move slowly. This disadvantage makes its foraging mainly based on surrounding creatures such as crustaceans, shrimp, and crabs. Droplet fish just need to open their mouth and wait for the food source to flow into their mouth.
Considered as a harmless fish to humans, however, because they live close to the sea floor, in the process of catching seafood by dredging, they were accidentally caught ashore. It is this that threatens the life of the drop fish and they are more interested by scientists about conservation in the natural environment.
