Hagfish

Hagfish, of the class Myxini /mɪkˈsaɪnaɪ/ (also known as Hyperotreti) and order Myxiniformes /mɪkˈsɪnɪfɔːrmiːz/, are eel-shaped jawless fish (occasionally called slime eels). Hagfish are the only known living animals that have a skull but no vertebral column, although they do have rudimentary vertebrae. Hagfish are marine predators and scavengers who can defend themselves against other larger predators by releasing copious amounts of slime from mucous glands in their skin.

Although their exact relationship to the only other living group of jawless fish, the lampreys, was long the subject of controversy, genetic evidence suggests that hagfish and lampreys are more closely related to each other than to jawed vertebrates, thus forming the clade Cyclostomi. The oldest-known stem group hagfish are known from the Late Carboniferous, around 310 million years ago, with modern representatives first being recorded in the mid-Cretaceous around 100 million years ago.