This thread is about all the creatures of nature that are outright unpleasant. The ones that make us wince but are ultimately a neccessary part of the ecosystem and should be appreciated for the role they play. And then left on someones pillowcase.
The lamprey is the vampire of the aquatic world. Adult lampreys act as parasites on a large variety of fishes and sea mammals. They attach to the host using it their sucker mouths, which have very sharp teeth arranged in concentric circles. Once attached, the lamprey opens a wound onto the skin of the host using its rasping tongue, and then it feeds on blood and other bodily tissue. Some species can grow up to three feet long.
The hagfish eats marine worms and other invertebrates, and has been known to burrow into the bodies of dead and dying animals and eat them from the inside out. The hagfish can almost instantly secrete mass amounts of slime as defense mechanism. They can actually tie themselves into knots, which helps them to escape predators, clean of excess slime from their bodies, pull in food, and burrow into a carcass. They also sneeze to unclog their nostrils of their own slime. In Korea almost 5 million pounds of hagfish meat is consumed each year. Hagfish skin is also processed into "eelskin" products, such as wallets and purses.