It was once crowned the “world’s ugliest animal” and now the disgruntled-looking gelatinous blobfish has a new gong to its name: New Zealand’s fish of the year.
The winning species of blobfish, Psychrolutes marcidus, lives in the highly pressurised depths off the coasts of New Zealand and Australia and has developed a unique anatomy to exist. Blobfish do not have a swim bladder, a full skeleton, muscles or scales. Instead, their bodies are made up of blobby tissue with a lower density than water that allows them to float above the seafloor.
