Inshore hagfish
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An illustration based on the real animal.
A little discovery to share.
The inshore hagfish has eyes buried beneath its skin.
THE REAL WORLD
The real Inshore hagfish
- Scientific name
- Eptatretus burgeri
- Japanese name
- ヌタウナギ
- Group
- Ocean animals
- Class
- Myxini
- Order
- Myxiniformes
- Family
- Myxinidae
- Genus
- Eptatretus
Where the name “Inshore hagfish” comes from
The Japanese name includes unagi because its long, slender shape resembles an eel.
東邦大学It lives along Japan's Pacific coast from Miyagi to Kyushu and its Sea of Japan coast from Akita to Nagasaki, and off southern Korea and Taiwan.
When disturbed, it releases a slimy mucus called "nuta" that turns the seawater around it into jelly.
How the Inshore hagfish lives
It has no jaws and uses teeth in a mouth beneath its head to scrape and eat flesh from dead fish.
下田海中水族館Basic data
- Range
- Seto Inland Sea, southern and southeastern coasts of the Korean Peninsula, Jeju Island, Jiangsu, Taiwan, and elsewhere
Where the Inshore hagfish has been recorded
Records: GBIF.org (CC0 and CC BY 4.0 records, retrieved 2026-11-07). Map: Natural EarthSee the records on GBIF
Watch wild animals from a distance. Do not touch or feed them, and take care of the places where they live.
Names around the world
- 日本語
- ヌタウナギ
- 简体中文
- 蒲氏盲鳗
- 繁體中文
- 布氏黏盲鰻
- 한국어
- 먹장어
- Deutsch
- Bürgers Schleimaal
- Português (Brasil)
- Peixe-bruxa-coreano
- Русский
- Японский пиявкорот
Names come from Wikidata and iNaturalist records. Where a language has no recorded name, we use the scientific name.
Sources and how we check
- 鳥羽水族館 — ヌタウナギChecked: 2026-11-04
- 下田海中水族館 — ヌタウナギの展示Checked: 2026-11-07
- 東邦大学 — 生きた化石－ヌタウナギChecked: 2026-11-07
We check each fact against its source. The illustrations simplify how the real animal looks.
The classification (class, order, family, genus) follows Wikidata records, checked against GBIF. Classifications can change as research goes on.
The basic data are the values given in each source. They vary with how the animal is measured, whether it is male or female, and whether it lives in the wild or in captivity.
This page was translated from the original Japanese with the help of AI.
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