Sardines can produce silk like silkworms

The non-jaw, invertebrate rocky grouper, which looks like giant worms, is a primitive species that lives on the ocean floor, present on the planet 500 million years ago.

A special mucus produced by them is thought by Canadian scientists to be a material to produce cloth for humanity in the future.

Rocky grouper (hagfish, Myxinidae) is not a charming animal. They live in dark abyss on the ocean floor and specialize in scavengers. One of their most favorite dishes is the whale carcass. But even though there is nothing attractive about it, if we don't want to say that it looks even more frightening, they are still very interesting animals. The mucus they secrete to protect themselves is a material that can be used to make apparel fabrics.

"Among the sea creatures I have studied, rocky grouper is not the most attractive species, but we are very . admirable. They have appeared on Earth hundreds of millions of years ago, from time to time. dinosaurs and many other species have been extinct for a long time, " said Tim Uinegard, a University of Guelph researcher in Canada who specializes in the study of grouper slime.

Due to the disasters of Nature, the dinosaurs that dominated the planet died massively 60 million years ago, the rocky grouper hiding under the deep ocean survived to this day. There are about 100 glands in their bodies that produce a milky white substance. The substance spread out, merging into the sea water, creating very thin, but extremely durable and elastic fibers.

Just fluttering in the sea, then hardening, they are no different from silk threads. Although there are rocky grouper species up to 1.2 meters long, on average they are only a little longer than a glove, about 30cm. Despite its small size, a rocky grouper carries on it a quantity of slime that can turn into a strand of tens of thousands of meters long, which is chemically in nature, like silk.

Scientists have experimented using silk from woven grouper to light, durable, breathable and elastic clothing for sportsmen. They even sew into bulletproof vests very effectively. Scientists believe that it is possible to organize grouper to get silk, like silkworms but in the ocean floor.