Eptatretus deani
species of chordates
Eptatretus deani, the black hagfish, is a species of hagfish.
Common to other species of hagfish, their unusual feeding habits and slime-producing capabilities have led members of the scientific and popular media to dub the hagfish as the most "disgusting" of all sea creatures. Although hagfish are sometimes called "slime eels", they are not eels at all.
Description
This eel-like species is uniform black, or dark brown. It can also appear prune-colored, and often piebald with light spots. The edges of the ventral finfolds and caudal may have a light colour. Unlike the Pacific hagfish, the black hagfish does not have a white ring around their gill pores. It has no true fins, but instead, one dorsal finfold, far back on its body. It has a moderately broad and round caudal, with ray-like markings. The ventral finfold is very low.
“Eptatretus deani” enters the record as species of chordates. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Eptatretus, deani and species can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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“Eptatretus deani” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Eptatretus, deani and species provides the most credible route into that argument.
Datasets, specimens, observations and peer-reviewed methods provide the appropriate test for the technical claims summarized here. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jul 1, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q4499974. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference.
A general summary may omit uncertainty, sample limits or methodological disagreement that is explicit in the technical record. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
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This entry incorporates text from “Eptatretus deani” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.