This is a hagfish: a slimy, slithering, somewhat-phallic-shaped marine animal. It almost looks like an eel, but it’s not. The hagfish is a more—how shall we put this?—”unique creature.”

The animal is unfairly described by science blogs as “the most disgusting creature on Earth.” Sure, that “mouth” looks like it could haunt your dreams forever, but we have unconventional beauty standards here at Upvoted. The weirder the better, and it can’t get much stranger than the hagfish.

These majestic, slender creatures are unlike anything that you’ve ever seen. Hagfish are born without a cerebrum or a cerebellum.

They have no jaw and no stomach. They are born with both male and female parts, changing their sex on a whim, says the University of California, Berkeley’s Museum of Paleontology.

Swimming in cold oceans around the world, these opportunistic scavengers feast on dead fishes, tearing flesh with tooth-like rasps.

Though, here’s where things get really titillating (…or grotesque depending on your interpretation): Whenever hagfish are stressed or in danger, they secrete copious amounts of slimy mucous from their pores, a perfect defense mechanism against ravenous predators.

If a shark dares to eat a hagfish, slime will choke the predator by clogging up its gills and mouth, according to a study published in Nature. In the study’s video below, each predator is clearly unsuccessful, gagging after trying to attack the hagfish.

The sticky substance is thick and gooey. You can get a better idea in this video below, where someone at the Vancouver Aquarium tries to pull it apart with their bare hands.