{"id":2969,"date":"2017-10-17T18:00:56","date_gmt":"2017-10-17T18:00:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/whaletimes.org\/?page_id=2969"},"modified":"2017-10-18T15:05:05","modified_gmt":"2017-10-18T15:05:05","slug":"expert-andrew-clark-and-hagfish","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/whaletimes.org\/?page_id=2969","title":{"rendered":"Expert: Andrew Clark &#038; Hagfish Knots"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/whaletimes.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/10\/xclark-andrew-pic_jpg_pagespeed_ic_vOsBQ9uov1.jpg\"><\/a><a href=\"http:\/\/whaletimes.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/10\/xclark-andrew-pic_jpg_pagespeed_ic_vOsBQ9uov1.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright wp-image-3035 \" src=\"http:\/\/whaletimes.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/10\/xclark-andrew-pic_jpg_pagespeed_ic_vOsBQ9uov1.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"151\" height=\"210\" \/><\/a>Hello Hagfish Day Fans!<\/p>\n<p>Good News! We had a chance to talk to\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/clarkaj.people.cofc.edu\/Home.html\">Dr. Andrew J. Clark<\/a>,\u00a0Associate Professor of\u00a0Biology at\u00a0College of Charleston, before he began his\u00a0Hagfish Day festivities. Dr. Clark\u00a0has\u00a0been studying hagfish for many years, so we suspect Hagfish Day is a humongous\u00a0deal in his lab. We wondered if he and his team decorated with\u00a0hagfish garland, had a hagfish pi\u00f1ata,\u00a0or maybe had a Secret Hagfish gift exchange&#8230;but\u00a0we were so interested in his research we forgot to ask! Meet Dr. Clark.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Dr. Clark,\u00a0how long have you been studying hagfish? Do you study them from a ship or in a lab?<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>AC: About 15 years.\u00a0Most of time my colleagues at the lab and I study them in the <a href=\"http:\/\/clarkaj.people.cofc.edu\/The_Lab.html\">lab<\/a>.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>What was your first thought when you heard that hagfish <\/strong><em><strong>finally<\/strong><\/em><strong> got their own holiday?\u00a0\u00a0 <\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/whaletimes.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/09\/HAGFISH-Hagfish-Day-Copyright-2013-RA-Musgrave-All-Rights-Reserved.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-2863 size-medium alignright\" src=\"http:\/\/whaletimes.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/09\/HAGFISH-Hagfish-Day-Copyright-2013-RA-Musgrave-All-Rights-Reserved-300x222.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"222\" srcset=\"https:\/\/whaletimes.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/09\/HAGFISH-Hagfish-Day-Copyright-2013-RA-Musgrave-All-Rights-Reserved-300x222.jpg 300w, https:\/\/whaletimes.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/09\/HAGFISH-Hagfish-Day-Copyright-2013-RA-Musgrave-All-Rights-Reserved-768x569.jpg 768w, https:\/\/whaletimes.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/09\/HAGFISH-Hagfish-Day-Copyright-2013-RA-Musgrave-All-Rights-Reserved-1024x759.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/whaletimes.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/09\/HAGFISH-Hagfish-Day-Copyright-2013-RA-Musgrave-All-Rights-Reserved.jpg 1539w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a>AC: I\u2019ll admit, it also made me feel as if I was\u00a0finally studying the cool ocean animal! I studied hagfish as a grad student while\u00a0other students studied more popular animals like dolphins, sharks, stingrays, and sea turtles.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\">If you&#8217;re going to create a holiday, hagfish will turn a lot of heads!\u00a0 Like the underdog around the popular ocean kids (aka dolphins and sea otters)\u00a0hagfish\u00a0don&#8217;t look like much. That is until you\u00a0see them doing things other animals cannot.<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\">It\u2019s also a cool that a Hagfish Day introduces ocean animals that may not seem as cool at first, but are\u00a0as fascinating as they are\u00a0ecologically important.<\/p>\n<p><strong>What do you\u00a0study?<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>AC: Over the past few\u00a0years, my colleagues and I have been studying how hagfish bite and the structural and material properties of their skins.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Hagfish bite? I thought they didn&#8217;t have a real set of jaws like, say a shark or people.<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>AC: Hagfish bite hard even though they do not have upper jaws. Sort of like lower jaws, hagfish have \u201ctooth plates\u201d that can be forcefully driven into food. To bite really hard, a hagfish must use its entire body like an upper jaw to counteract the biting action of the lower jaw or tooth plates. It will either swim into the prey while biting or tie itself into a knot. While tying its tail end into a knot, the hagfish grabs the food with its tooth plates, and then while it\u00a0retracting its\u00a0teeth, the knotted part of body rolls over the head and pushes against the food as the teeth are pulling back. At this moment, the knotted body becomes a rigid ball (or an upper jaw) that counter balances the lower jaw-like actions of the tooth plates.\n<ul>\n<li>VIDEO:<a href=\"http:\/\/clarkaj.people.cofc.edu\/Videos.html\"> Watch a hagfish bite<\/a><\/li>\n<li>VIDEO:<a href=\"http:\/\/whaletimes.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/10\/Biting-Atlantic-Hagfish.mov\"> Biting Atlantic Hagfish<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Why study\u00a0hagfish skin?<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Hagfish have odd skin. It is unusually baggy. A hagfish\u00a0needs to be able to twist its\u00a0body &#8212; twist it in ways that most fish cannot. \u00a0We want to know about the structural and material characteristics of their skin that allows them to do this.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\">A typical fish, like a salmon or tuna, has tightly wrapped skin. Tight skin has important functions. For example, it reduces drag. Think of an Olympic swimmer who wears tight fitting bathing suit and a hair cap to help him or her\u00a0swim faster. A fish\u2019s tight skin also helps it retain an optimal body shape for swimming. The skin also helps fish keep their body from overbending which could hurt vertebral column.<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\">In contrast, hagfish have baggy skin. Very draggy for steady swimming but very handy for maneuvering and avoiding shark bites.\u00a0Sort of\u00a0like a karate uniform (gi) that allows the\u00a0athlete to kick, turn, or\u00a0twist without limiting her or his movement. Also, the loose fit of the gi makes it really difficult to grab the person underneath the gi.<\/p>\n<p>Read more about it: <span style=\"font-family: Calibri;\"><span style=\"color: #000000;\">Clark, A.J., Crawford, C.H., King, B.D., Demas, A.M. and Uyeno, T.A., 2016. Material properties of hagfish skin, with insights into knotting behaviors.\u00a0<i>The Biological Bulletin<\/i><\/span><span style=\"color: #000000;\">,\u00a0<\/span><i><span style=\"color: #000000;\">230<\/span><\/i><span style=\"color: #000000;\">(3), pp.243-256.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p><strong>Is it true some hagfish can tie themselves into fancy knots? Can they tie themselves into bows?\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>AC: Hagfish are the world&#8217;s best contortionists. A hagfish\u00a0can\u00a0tie\u00a0and untie itself\u00a0like we tie and untie a rope.\u00a0 Atlantic hagfish are limited to\u00a0simple overhand knots. Pacific hagfish\u00a0are more acrobatic.\u00a0 Pacific hagfish can tie themselves into overhand knots,\u00a0figure 8s,\u00a0and even more\u00a0complicated knots. They can even\u00a0form two knots at once!\n<ul>\n<li>VIDEO: <a href=\"http:\/\/whaletimes.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/10\/Atlantic-Hagfish-Knotting-itself-MG_Knot_Vid2-by-Mr-Austin-Haney-and-Dr-Ted-Uyeno-All-Rights-Reserved.mov\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Atlantic hagfish tying itself in a knot <\/a><\/li>\n<li>VIDEO: <a href=\"http:\/\/whaletimes.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/10\/Pacific-Hagfish-Knotting-Courtesy-Andrew-Clark.mov\">Pacific Hagfish Knotting Courtesy Andrew Clark<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>How can I help hagfish? <\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>AC: Helping hagfish starts with awareness. Hagfish eat carrion or carcasses that fall to ocean floor. They are the clean up crew, the garbage collectors of the deep. That makes them an important part of the food web.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Do you have a\u00a0special shirt made of hagfish slime to wear on\u00a0Hagfish Day?\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>No not now, but I can&#8217;t wait until <a href=\"http:\/\/whaletimes.org\/?page_id=2939\">Dr. Fudge<\/a>\u00a0can make one for me! (also see: <a href=\"http:\/\/whaletimes.org\/?page_id=2937\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Save the Planet, Wear Hagfish Slime)<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Thank you Dr. Clark for joining us for Hagfish Day. Be sure to follow his very\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/clarkaj.people.cofc.edu\/The_Lab.html\">cool research.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Hello Hagfish Day Fans! Good News! We had a chance to talk to\u00a0Dr. Andrew J. Clark,\u00a0Associate Professor of\u00a0Biology at\u00a0College of Charleston, before he began his\u00a0Hagfish Day festivities. Dr. Clark\u00a0has\u00a0been studying hagfish for many years, so we suspect Hagfish Day is a humongous\u00a0deal in his lab. We wondered if he and his team decorated with\u00a0hagfish garland, &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/whaletimes.org\/?page_id=2969\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":171,"menu_order":1,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"full-width-page.php","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-2969","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/whaletimes.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2969","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/whaletimes.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/whaletimes.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/whaletimes.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/whaletimes.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2969"}],"version-history":[{"count":33,"href":"https:\/\/whaletimes.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2969\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3050,"href":"https:\/\/whaletimes.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2969\/revisions\/3050"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/whaletimes.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/171"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/whaletimes.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2969"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}