New Feature: Ugliest Endangered Species

by Cameron Scott · 2010-01-25 13:08:00 UTC
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Mother Jones has an occasional feature on the cutest endangered species.

But, you know, being adorable and all, do they really need the extra boost?

You rarely see the aye aye, for example, featured as prominently in the news as a single gorgeous jaguar named Macho B was this weekend.

I'm throwing my weight behind the underdogs. And, with no further ado, I present to you the blob fish.

Why is he so sad? He lives deep in the sea — up to 800 meters deep — and has no reason to look happy or be cute, since he's rarely seen by humans, or really at all, since it's dark in the deep sea. The fish is slightly less dense than water, allowing it to float along the bottom of the ocean with no effort. Ugly though it may be, it's highly evolved to survive in an extreme habitat. Kudos for that, Mr. Blob!

Increasingly, the blob fish is facing extermination as humans trawl in deeper and deeper water due to overfishing. Australia is the blob's chief habitat.

Perhaps because it's ugly and inedible, it hasn't even been classified — as endangered or threatened or anything else — by the IUCN.

Some environmentalists want to see bottom trawling banned to protect such deep sea creatures.

Photo credit: Wikimedia Commons

Cameron Scott writes The Thin Green Line blog at SFGate (San Francisco Chronicle).
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