The blobfish, or Psychrolutes marcidus, is a novelty celebrity known primarily through viral photographs and internet memes that depict it as a perpetually frowning, gelatinous creature. Its unusual appearance leads many to wonder about its monetary worth. The simple answer to “How much is a blobfish?” is that it possesses no commercial price tag. Its extreme rarity and unique biology make it impossible to buy or sell, meaning its true value lies in its scientific and conservation status.
The Blobfish’s Deep-Sea Habitat
The blobfish is a deep-sea dweller, primarily inhabiting the cold, dark waters of the bathyal zone off the continental slopes of Australia, Tasmania, and New Zealand. This environment is characterized by crushing hydrostatic pressure, ranging from 60 to 120 times greater than the pressure at sea level. The species is typically found at depths between 2,000 and 3,900 feet (600 and 1,200 meters) below the ocean surface.
These depths are pitch black, with temperatures consistently hovering around 39°F (4°C). The blobfish has adapted to these extreme conditions, living a benthic lifestyle where it floats just above the muddy or sandy seabed. This habitat provides the context for understanding the fish’s unique physical structure.
Why Blobfish Have No Commercial Value
The blobfish’s habitat alone renders it commercially non-viable for any market, including the pet, food, or research trades. The immense pressure of its deep-sea home makes it practically impossible to capture a live specimen and transport it without causing immediate, fatal physical trauma. Even if a live fish were successfully brought to the surface, the cost and technological difficulty of maintaining a high-pressure, low-temperature aquarium environment would be astronomical, making a commercial pet trade impossible.
The fish is also completely unsuitable for human consumption or the seafood market. Its body is composed of a low-density, gelatinous mass with minimal muscle tissue, which is an adaptation for buoyancy, not for food value. The blobfish is occasionally caught as unintentional bycatch in deep-sea bottom trawling operations, but these specimens are dead and useless.
The Physics Behind Its Famous Appearance
The blobfish’s iconic, “blob-like” look is not its natural state but rather the result of a severe physical reaction to depressurization. In its native high-pressure environment, the fish appears more like a typical fish, featuring a tadpole shape, bulbous head, and loose, flabby skin. The surrounding water pressure provides the external support necessary to maintain its body structure.
The blobfish lacks a swim bladder, the gas-filled organ used by most shallow-water fish for buoyancy control, because such an organ would implode under deep-sea pressure. Instead, its body is a gelatinous mass with a density slightly less than water, allowing it to float effortlessly above the seafloor without expending energy. When the fish is rapidly pulled to the surface, the loss of external pressure causes its water-logged tissues to expand and collapse into the shapeless, pink mass.
Conservation Status and Indirect Value
While the blobfish is not a commodity, it possesses indirect value as a focus of conservation awareness. The species is threatened primarily by deep-sea bottom trawling, a fishing method where large, weighted nets are dragged across the seabed to catch marketable species like orange roughy and lobsters. The blobfish is caught unintentionally as bycatch in these nets, and the process is fatal due to rapid decompression.
The blobfish is currently listed as “Not Evaluated” by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), meaning there is insufficient data to determine its extinction risk. The blobfish has become a cultural icon, serving as the mascot for the Ugly Animal Preservation Society. This status gives it symbolic importance, generating public interest and drawing attention to conservation challenges facing less charismatic deep-sea species.