Myxine glutinosa
Atlantic Hagfish
NS
G5
Collection Details
Specimens
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Records
Taxonomic Hierarchy
Myxini (Hagfishes)
Myxiniformes (Hagfish)
Myxinidae (Hagfishes)
Myxine
Myxine glutinosa (Atlantic Hagfish)
Description
This species account was compiled from
FishBase (Froese, R. and D. Pauly. Editors. 2025. FishBase. World Wide Web electronic publication. www.fishbase.org, version 04/2025.)
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Characters
Body shape: eel-like. Jawless mouth, single nasal aperture, only a single pair of external gill openings, no operculum or covering fold of skin. Grayish or reddish brown above, either plain. Variations in color correspond to the color of the sea bottom.
Distribution
North Atlantic: Murmansk to the Mediterranean Sea; Greenland to USA. Absent in eastern Mediterranean and Black Sea. Only hagfish in the Northeast Atlantic.
Habitat Associations
Marine. bathydemersal. depth range 20-1200 m.
Biology
Benthic with reported depths to 782 off Greenland; 960 m in Northwestern Atlantic; and 1,100 m off Norway (Ref. 119696). Found on muddy bottoms where they hide in the mud. Slime is used for defense. Feeds chiefly on dead and dying fish of varying species by boring into the body and consuming viscera and musculature. Chiefly nocturnal. Its eggs are few in number about 19-30 and large (20-25 mm), the horny shell has a cluster of anchor-tipped filaments at each end.
Max length: 95.0 cm TL; common length: 30.0 cm TL.
fertilization: external; nonguarders. Copulatory organ absent. The gonads of hagfishes are situated in the peritoneal cavity. The ovary is found in the anterior portion of the gonad, and the testis is found in the posterior part. The animal becomes female if the cranial part of the gonad develops or male if the caudal part undergoes differentiation. If none develops, then the animal becomes sterile. If both anterior and posterior parts develop, then the animal becomes a functional hermaphrodite. However, hermaphroditism being characterised as functional needs to be validated by more reproduction studies (Ref. 51361 ). Probably breed throughout the year in deep water (Ref. 35388).
IUCN Red List Status: Least Concern (LC), assessed 2009-11-12. Resilience: Low (Fec= 20-30).
Commercial or Environmental Importance
Fisheries: of no interest.
References
Fernholm, B. (1998) Hagfish systematics. p. 33-44. In J.M. Jørgensen, J.P. Lomholt, R.E. Weber and H. Malte (eds.) The biology of hagfishes. Chapman & Hall, London. 578 p.
Bigelow, H.B. and W.C. Schroeder (1948) Cyclostomes. p. 29-58. In J. Tee-Van, C.M. Breder, S.F. Hildebrand, A.E. Parr and W.C. Schroeder (eds.) Fishes of the Western North Atlantic. Part one. Lancelets, cyclostomes, sharks. Sears Foundation for Marine Research, Yale University, New Haven. 576 p.
Bowman, R.E., C.E. Stillwell, W.L. Michaels and M.D. Grosslein (2000) Food of northwest Atlantic fishes and two common species of squid. NOAA Tech. Memo. NMFS-NE 155, 138 p.
Patzner, R.A. (1998) Gonads and reproduction in hagfishes. p. 378-395. In J.M. Jørgensen, J.P. Lomholt, R.E. Weber and H. Malte (eds.) The biology of hagfishes. Chapman & Hall, London. 578 p.
Coad, B.W. and J.D. Reist (2018) Marine fishes of Arctic Canada. Toronto (ON, Canada): University of Toronto Press. xiii+618 p.
Mecklenburg, C.W., A. Lynghammar, E. Johannesen, I. Byrkjedal, J.S. Christiansen, A.V. Dolgov, O.V. Karamushko, T.A. Mecklenburg, P.R. Møller, D. Steinke and P.R. Wienerroither (2018) Marine fishes of the Arctic Region.Volume I. Conservation of Arctic Flora and Fauna, Akureyri, Iceland. [CAFF Monitoring Series Report 28:1-454.]
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