Fear Teh Blob Fish!

**Cochise** · 2010-02-18 07:53

http://www.chicagotribune.com/media/...2/52271615.jpg

With its humanlike face, the blobfish is a creature of nightmares, and who knows what terrors it could bring upon us
By John Kass

February 17, 2010

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Federal fish fighters this week are preparing further assaults on the feared Asian carp, with nets, electrified fences, poison — whatever they can do to stop the terrifying beast from entering the Great Lakes.

Yet as scary as the jumping Asian carp may be, there's something even scarier.

The blobfish.

As you can see from the accompanying photograph, the cunning blobfish (Psychrolutes marcidus) is the most terrifying fish in the world.

And if you're not afraid of it yet, you should be, because there's always something lurking out there that can get you.

Its hideously deformed body is quite boneless, a gelatinous orb hovering in the deep, covered in slime and mucus. But there's something even worse.

Its face.

Most fish don't really have faces. You've heard people refer to "fish eyes" or "fish lips," or they say, "Oh, shut up, you old fish face."

But the blobfish actually has a face. Not a fish face, but a human face, complete with lips and a big, bulbous nose.

A blobfish looks like some fat, drunken judge and may be highly intelligent. And therefore quite dangerous.

It frowns. It leers. Sometimes, it even drools.

"That's gross!" said an editor around here who didn't believe me. But once she saw the photos, she began gnawing the knuckles on her right hand in sheer, abject terror.

American journalism has a formula for stories designed to whip up panic about highly adaptive species. For "balance," you insert a quote or two from some learned biologist who tells readers not to worry.

Some marine biologist might reassure readers that the blobfish lives far away, in the deep waters off the coast of Tasmania — some 9,600 miles away — and therefore could never find its way into the Chicago River or the ship canal.

Yeah, right.

I prefer another learned scientist, the one played by Jeff Goldblum in "Jurassic Park."

The smarmy, leather-clad mathematician scoffed at the hubris of mankind, which believes it possible to contain dangerous creatures, even a ravenous mass of floating goo that just might bite your face off.

"Life, uh, finds a way," Goldblum said.

So I'll believe Goldblum before I ever believe some namby-pamby marine biologist getting paid by the government to avert a blobfish panic.

Therefore, it's not impossible (perhaps even likely) that schools of bloodthirsty blobfish may be blobbing their way up the Mississippi River, their big noses leaving wakes behind them, and roiling trails of foam. And then they'll be oozing from your kitchen tap.

http://www.latimes.com/ct-met-kass-0...7154335.column