Dr. Cliff Redford

It's like a pillow for your entire body.

That's fair.

That's fair.

Yeah.

So, but the thing is, is like everything in nature, there's purpose, right?

This mucus has antibiotic properties.

It's the next treatment for the zombie plague, I think.

So, it covers himself in this mucus and...

You know, any sort of pathogen, any sort of bacteria, it helps kill it.

It helps keep them healthy, as mucus does.

It blocks blood-sucking parasites from getting at the fish while it's sleeping.

Do fish sleep or do they just kind of have a period of low activity?

I mean, what is sleep, really?

It's just your brain's kind of half sleeping, half shutting off.

I don't know.

We're going to say for the parrotfish, it's sleep, essentially.

I know sharks don't really sleep because they need to keep moving because they need to be able to get the water to go through their gills, but...

It also hides their odor and then it acts like an alarm.

So if a predator comes up and touches and breaks this mucus bubble, the thing takes off.

So it's this amazing, adaptive, arguably gross, but who cares?