Story Archive

Monsters on the Highway

Hagfish have tentacles around their mouths, and they dig tunnels into the corpses of larger animals to eat them. The spineless fish produce slime — five gallons or more, when mixed with water — when disturbed. And it turns out they find being flung out onto a highway to die from lack of water disturbing. That’s what happened to 7,500 pounds of hagfish — or “slime eels,” as they’re also known — in Oregon, and they duly slimed a stretch of U.S. Highway 101 in Lincoln County. Police say Salvatore Tragale couldn’t stop his truck quickly enough when he encountered road work, and the containers of slime eels he was hauling for shipment to Korea — to be eaten — dumped onto the highway and nearby cars, causing four of them to crash. It wasn’t immediately clear whether or how Tragale would be charged. (AC/Portland Oregonian, KOIN Portland) ...If they’d been electric eels, there’d already have been charges all around.