Hagfish Day – Third Wednesday in October

Hagfish Day – Third Wednesday in October observed annually, to encourage everyone to look beyond the exterior look of the Hagfish and appreciate.

The classification of hagfish has been controversial. The issue is whether the hagfish is a degenerate type of vertebrate-fish (most closely related to lampreys), or represents a stage that precedes the evolution of the vertebral column (as do lancelets). The original scheme groups hagfish and lampreys together as cyclostomes (or historically, Agnatha), as the oldest surviving class of vertebrates alongside gnathostomes(the now-ubiquitous jawed vertebrates). An alternative scheme proposed that jawed vertebrates are more closely related to lampreys than to hagfish (i.e., that vertebrates include lampreys but exclude hagfish), and introduces the category craniata to group vertebrates near hagfish. Recent DNA evidence has supported the original scheme
Clearly the father of a million horror movie nightmares, the Hagfish stands to remind us that there are horribly unpleasant little beasties in the deep, but the world may be a much less pleasant place if we didn’t have them around. (With material from Wikipedia)
Share on social media using #HagfishDay–ThirdWednesdayinOctober