Would you mess with this mother?

OK let us be honest here - to us this female of the species may not exactly be one of the most attractive of the fairer sex, but - who knows - she may the underwater version of Angelina Jolie to others of her kind.

However, she is doing what mothers do best and guarding her young well. Mind you, the more you look at her, the more appealing to the eye she seems to become in an odd sort of way. Those dark eyes, those completely natural full lips that have not had a collagen needle anywhere near them. Awww she is rather sweet really.

The Birch Aquarium at Scripps Institution of Oceanography in La Jolla, California announced in late March that aquarists there had been helping around 250 baby wolf eels to hatch from a mass of eggs, with another couple of hundred due to hatch over the following couple of weeks. Found in the northern Pacific Ocean, wolf eels (Anarrhichthys ocellatus) are not actually eels at all but fish (scientists refer to them as 'wolf-fish') and despite their rather aggressive look, they are quite friendly unless, of course, you happen to be a sea urchin at dinner time. They are rarely aggressive, but it may be wise to note that they are capable of giving a painful bite if they so desire.