Discoveries

April 18, 2023

The Deep

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Marine scientists recently photographed a species of snailfish swimming nearly 8,336 meters, or 27,349 feet below sea level off the coast of Japan, the deepest a fish has ever been caught on camera, Insider reported.

The researchers utilized an autonomous “lander” camera to capture footage of the snailfish in the dark and mysterious Izu-Ogasawara Trench in southern Japan.

Researcher Alan Jamieson and his team explained that the finding was astonishing because the creature’s location is believed to be at or “very close to” the maximum depth that any fish can survive.

“If this record is broken, it would only be by minute increments, potentially by just a few meters,” he told the BBC.

The previous record holder was another snailfish – the Mariana snailfish – spotted at 26,839 feet in the Mariana Trench in the Pacific Ocean.

While the Mariana Trench is the deepest point of any sea on the planet, the team believes the more recently recorded snailfish could only survive the extreme depths because of the Izu-Ogasawara Trench’s warmer waters.

They also suggested that the snailfish belongs to the genus Pseudoliparis but they did not capture it for further study.

Instead, they caught a number of fish swimming slightly higher, at around 26,320 feet, which were identified as Pseudoliparis belyaevi. The capture also set the record for the deepest level at which a fish has ever been caught.

Snailfish are known to inhabit the hadal zone, the deepest part of the ocean – depths there can range from 19,000 to 36,000 feet and no light can penetrate, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

This recent discovery provides a valuable insight into the astonishing adaptation of marine life to the most extreme and unexplored environments on our planet.

This story originally appeared in the April 18, 2023 newsletter, Fathers and Sons.