THE WONDERFUL WORLD OF SLIME

Runny noses, slippery sea creatures and that impossible-to-clean bit behind your sink all have one thing in common: slime. While it might make us cringe, life on Earth would be very different without it

- SUSANNE WEDLICH

On 13 July 2017, the apocalypse hit Oregon and it looked like an almighty sneeze. A lorry had overturned and dumped its gooey cargo on a section of Highway 101. Slime covered the road surface, and a couple of vehicles got caught up in the gunk. And as if that wasn’t bad enough, the snot was teeming with hundreds of eel-like creatures: hagfish.

There are many outlandish life forms on the planet and then there is the hagfish. This ancient vertebrate tunnels its way through the carcasses of dead animals, feasting on their flesh. It has no jaws, a double row of pointy teeth, and very simple eyes. Yet these peculiarities pale in comparison to the hagfish’s unique defence mechanism.

Stowed away in their skin are slime glands from which the hagfish release a slime precursor. This is made up of molecules called mucins, and long, tightly coiled protein threads. When released, the mucins bind with seawater and expand, while the threads unravel in milliseconds. Together, they weave a textured slime that’s tough enough to gag a shark, clog its gills and scare it away. To stop itself becoming trapped in its own goo, the hagfish can tie a knot in its body and slide it from head to tail, wiping off the slime as it goes.

LIFE OF SLIME 

If the hagfish is the champion of slime, the rest of creation comes in a close second. Microbes, plants, fungi and animals all use, produce and need slime for protection and defence, to move and mate, to communicate and catch prey. Even seemingly simple organisms have come up with ingenious slime solutions, whether they live on land or in the sea.