Blobfish are a lie-in-wait predator and are bottom feeders. Very little is known about the Blobfish due to how deep in the ocean they live. We don’t know how long they live, how big they get, or their natural predators.

Blobfish are deep-sea fish found in the cold, dark waters off Australia and New Zealand. Their scientific name is Psychrolutes marcidus. 

“They’re so cute, but a lot of photos taken of them are dead, which is really sad,” said Yaritza Arroyo, a media arts major. When asked why she finds them cute, Arroyo said, “Mostly because of their face and their coloredness, they look so squishy.”

Blobfish live in the deep ocean, an environment not often visited by humans. According to the National  Geographic Society and Fishbase, they are usually found around 4,000 feet deep, where water pressure is about 1,000 bars. Blobfish belong to the fathead sculpin family.

 Visual arts major, Carmen Thomas, said, “They’re ugly, because they look deflated and so they shouldn’t exist, because they look weird.” “I can’t look at it, it gives me nightmares,” Thomas said.

Just like many other deep sea animals, Blobfish don’t have a swim bladder, which helps with buoyancy. At the depths where blobfish live, a swim bladder would implode due to the high water pressure. Instead, blobfish have a high content of fat and water, along with thick, jelly-like flesh under their skin. Blobfish have white muscles instead of red ones and very loose, flabby skin.

Ayalna Vigilia, a band major, said, “They’re awesome. You know, they kind of look like gelatinous cotton candy. That makes sense, because they’re just like, bright pink, squishy,” 

Vigilia expressed their fondness for the blobfish. “Yeah, yeah. That’s just their looks. Visually at least when they’re taken out of water where all the pressures, there you know.” said Vigilia

 Many people don’t know that blobfish aren’t actually blobby in their natural habitat. The high pressure at the ocean depths holds their form. When removed from this environment, they become the pink, gelatinous creatures often seen in photos.

Not much is known about the blobfish in general, but it is suspected that they breed in groups, with females laying eggs on the ocean floor. Additionally, there is no known method to distinguish male from female blobfish.

Blobfish were dubbed “The World’s Ugliest Animal” in 2013 by the Ugly Animal Preservation Society.