Blobfish. The ugly fish

The blobfish is perceived by many as the world's ugliest fish, seen always with an expression resembling a permanent frown.

The blobfish is indubitably one of the most grotesque looking fish in the seven seas, with what appears to be a notably large nose between a pair of eyes, giving any fortunate enough to behold such a fish the impression that it is actually frowning. The blobfish, scientifically known as the Psychrolutes marcidus, belongs to the family Psychrolutidae, which also includes the pale and dark toadfish. Growing up to 12 inches in body length, it is commonly found off the coast of mainland Australia and Tasmania at uninhabitable depths of approximately 800 meters, considering the pressure any fish living around those depths would have to endure is eighty times greater than at sea level, as a result rendering gas-filled bladders incapable of sustaining any fish’s buoyancy underwater. The blobfish is as such regarded as extremely rare.

The blobfish
The blobfish’s body is nearly composed of a gelatinous substance of a lower density than water, enabling it to float above the ocean bed. It should also be noted that the blobfish does not contain within itself any sort of muscle as observed in an average fish for the daily affair of swimming. Due to this reason, the blobfish is seen drifting on the same spot gobbling up virtually anything that floats by above the seabed, normally sea urchins and mollusks. Due to the scarcity of food that can be found on the seabed, the blobfish will not be able to maintain frequent meals as other fish capable of swimming and hunting for prey do, though this does not seem to serve as a problem to the fish when taking into account its modest level of sustenance. As such, the blobfish is appropriately branded sometimes as extremely inactive.

The blobfish is frequently caught by mistake during sessions of bottom trawling alongside other seabed-dwelling organisms such as crabs and lobsters. It is due to this that the blobfish populace is slowly declining, pushing it to the brink of extinction.Perhaps one of the more interesting traits the blobfish expresses is the way it reproduces. Like any other fish, the female blobfish is capable of laying thousands of eggs all at once and could be found floating close by them till they hatch. From the surface, it would even seem as if the female blobfish is actually sitting on its nest of eggs. A portion of female blobfish could also be seen close by each other while they nest, though the reason to such a behavior remains undetermined.