Pacific Hagfish Identification Guide

Key identification features

• Elongated, scaleless, eel-like body in pinkish to grayish-brown tones
• No functional eyes, only faint pigmented spots sensitive to light
• Single nostril at the snout tip surrounded by short sensory barbels
• Five to six pairs of external gill openings along the lower sides, more than most other hagfish
• No paired fins, only a low fold of skin forming a tail fin
• Rows of mucus pores running the length of the body that release copious slime when the animal is disturbed
• Jawless mouth with keratinized, rasping tooth structures on the tongue

Common look-alikes

• Atlantic hagfish has only a single pair of external gill openings instead of the Pacific hagfish's five or six pairs.
• Lampreys have eyes and a round, toothed sucker-disc mouth, neither of which is present in hagfish.

Where you'll see one

Pacific hagfish occupy the continental shelf and slope of the eastern Pacific from Alaska down to Baja California, living on or burrowed into soft, muddy seafloor at depths ranging from tens to several hundred meters.