Slimed!

Last July, a highway in Oregon turned into a scene straight out of a horror movie. A truck carrying 3,400 kilograms (7,500 pounds) of eel-like hagfish tipped over. The squirming creatures had been destined for Asia, where they are enjoyed as a culinary delicacy. Instead, they caused a terrible mess.

A single hagfish can create 19 liters (5 gallons) of slime almost instantaneously as a defense against predators. If a shark tries to chomp down on a hagfish, for example, the attacker gets a mouthful of slime that clogs its mouth and gills—feathery organs fish use to breathe. The goo chokes the shark, prompting it to spit out the hagfish. The hagfish’s slimy secretions and its incredibly flexible body, which lacks a backbone, allow it to quickly wriggle to safety.

Hagfish slime is a combination of sticky mucus and fibers made up of protein—large biological molecules essential to all living things. The animals secrete a small amount of the gooey substance from glands that run the length of their bodies, says Sarah Boggett, a biologist from the University of Guelph in Canada. “Once the slime makes contact with seawater, it expands.” The slime soaks up water and swells up to 10,000 times its original volume.

Since the hagfish being transported in Oregon were contained in water-filled bins, a huge amount of slime exploded from the truck when it crashed. There was so much goop that a bulldozer was needed to remove it all!