What to know when your car is melted by 7,500 pounds of slime eels

https://www.theverge.com/platform/amp/2017/7/14/15969674/slime-eels-hagfish-oregon-highway-truck-accident-slime-mucus-goo

by xbmcuser • 9 years ago

42 27 9 years ago

theverge.com

api• 9 years ago

So wait... Your hovercraft actually can get full of eels? Whoa!

kileywm• 9 years ago

A truck, carrying live Pacific hagfish, spilled the cargo in a 5-car collision. Hagfish produce slime to escape danger, and thus slimed the cars onto which they landed. There was no melting involved.

wyldfire• 9 years ago

Thanks for the clarification, I read the article expecting to find something about corrosive properties of the slime but couldn't understand why it wasn't even mentioned.

A bit frustrating that they used the word "melting".

s/melting by/covered with/

digi_owl• 9 years ago

Its Verge, it comes with the territory.

tyingq• 9 years ago

Maybe it was supposed to be "melded with"? It's apparently hard to remove.

Jemmeh• 9 years ago

To be fair the car "looks" melted, but unsure if that's just from the weight of the fish or if they have something in the slime that did it.

midgetjones• 9 years ago

"Anti-shark spray" has got to be a Batman reference, hasn't it? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yn-ZXgXQeGY

sosborn• 9 years ago

https://www.sharktecdefense.com/products/instant-release-sha...

diabeetusman• 9 years ago

I don't think the article ever really answers the question that it posed in the subtitle: does insurance cover hagfish slime?

Invoking Betteridge's law of headlines, I'm guessing not?

js22• 9 years ago

It should be covered by comprehensive coverage, but probably not by collision.

protomyth• 9 years ago

Depending on the state, the truck owner's insurance is going to be paying. It falls under the same laws for construction vehicles hauling dirt that drop a rock on your windshield.

yk• 9 years ago

From the linked FAQ:

    Do you think my insurance will cover me?

    This may technically count as an Act of Cod.

So apparently not, but if your car is destroyed in a collision with a truck and then covered in slime, it may be possible to argue that it was a normal accident and the car was destroyed before the hagfish attacked.

http://www.southernfriedscience.com/your-car-has-just-been-c...

js22• 9 years ago

The FAQ linked to from the verge is a much better source:

http://www.southernfriedscience.com/your-car-has-just-been-c...

xbmcuser• 9 years ago

Well this is embarrassing I was actually posting it to Reddit pressed the wrong app

sosuke• 9 years ago

Looks like an unexpected success then. You've got everyone talking about melting, melded, slimed and how they would correct the title or article.

euparkeria• 9 years ago

Melt also means "covered in slime or liquid"? English is not my first language.

epmatsw• 9 years ago

Not that I've ever heard. This is just a weird headline.

inopinatus2• 9 years ago

Not generally, no, although I am reminded of a style of melted-cheese-coated sandwiches called "melts".

orclev• 9 years ago

In that context it's the cheese that's being melted, not the sandwich. Melting implies some kind of state change from solid to liquid (or semi-liquid), which is in fact the case in a melt sandwich where the cheese is melting. In this case the slime was already in a liquid state so there's no change taking place and it would therefore be incorrect to refer to it as melting. It DOES look kind of like the car was melted because of the accident damage combined with being covered in slime, which is I guess what the title is alluding to.

pkamb• 9 years ago

The crashed car in the picture looks like it was melted by slime.

glennsl• 9 years ago

Non-AMP link: https://www.theverge.com/2017/7/14/15969674/slime-eels-hagfi...

petraeus• 9 years ago

Headline is typical Verge clickbait

danans• 9 years ago

And it turns out, the eel-like creatures are not, in fact, eels. They’re Pacific hagfish — primitive jawless fish
It’s the main defense mechanism for the toothy, bottom-feeding invertebrates

AFAIK, They can't be invertebrates if they are a type of fish.

EDIT: It appears they are certainly Chordates, but is some controversy over which sub-branch of Chordates they actually belong to. See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agnatha https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyclostomata

kkylin• 9 years ago

The statement is not as non-sensical as it sounds. Hagfish are actually quite interesting evolutionarily. See e.g. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hagfish .

reitanqild• 9 years ago

Article has an update as well:

Correction: This story initially identified hagfish as invertebrates because they don’t have vertebrae. Verge commenter bennyfactor pointed out that hagfish are in fact considered “odd” or “degenerate” vertebrates. He’s correct, and the story has been updated.

fenwick67• 9 years ago

The video of them squirming around on the ground in the goop is nightmare fuel

What to know when your car is melted by 7,500 pounds of slime eels

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