Atlantic Hagfish Identification Guide

Key identification features

• Elongated, scaleless, eel-like body, pinkish-gray to purplish-brown in color
• No eyes; only faint light-sensing spots beneath the skin
• No paired fins, just a low fin fold running along the tail
• Single nostril at the tip of the snout ringed by short barbels
• Cartilaginous, jawless skull with rasping tooth-like structures on a muscular tongue instead of true jaws
• A single row of mucus (slime) pores running down each side of the body
• Only one pair of external gill openings, positioned well back on the body

Common look-alikes

• Pacific hagfish has five to six pairs of external gill openings rather than the Atlantic hagfish's single pair.
• Lampreys have visible eyes and a circular, toothed sucker-disc mouth, both of which hagfish completely lack.

Where you'll see one

Atlantic hagfish live in cold, dark waters of the North Atlantic continental shelf and slope, usually well offshore at moderate to great depths, where they burrow into soft mud and sediment and scavenge on the seafloor.