27,349 feet under: World's deepest-ever fish filmed off the Japanese coast
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In September 2022, scientists at the University of Western Australia and Japan on the research ship DSSV Pressure Drop undertook a two-month expedition to explore the Izu-Ogasawara trenches in Japan at 26,247 feet (8,000m), 30,511 feet (9,300m), and 23,950 feet (7,300m) deep respectively as part of a 10-year study into the deepest fish populations in the world.
Baited cameras were deployed in the deepest parts of the trenches.
After a few days, the team found what they were looking for in the Izu-Ogasawara Trench, south of Japan. The team collected two fish in traps from deep, 26,319 feet (8,022m).
The unknown snailfish species of the genus Pseudoliparis was discovered at a depth of 27,349 feet (8,336m), making it the deepest record of a fish.
"We have spent over 15 years researching these deep snailfish; there is so much more to them than simply the depth, but the maximum depth they can survive is truly astonishing," UWA Professor Alan Jamieson said in a statement.
Snailfish had only been seen at a depth of 25,272 feet in 2008
These snailfish, Pseudoliparis belyaevi, were the first fish to be collected from depths greater than 8,000m and have only ever been seen at a depth of 25,272 feet (7,703m) in 2008.
“The Japanese trenches were incredible places to explore; they are so rich in life, even all the way at the bottom,” Professor Jamieson said. "In other trenches such as the Mariana Trench, we were finding them at increasingly deeper depths just creeping over that 8,000m mark in fewer and fewer numbers, but around Japan, they are really quite abundant," he continued.
A large population of fish can be found living at these depths. But the prize for the deepest ever found is an extremely small juvenile. Interestingly, snailfish is the opposite of other deep-sea fish, where the juveniles live at the deeper end of the depth range.
"The real take-home message for me, is not necessarily that they are living at 8,336m but rather we have enough information on this environment to have predicted that these trenches would be where the deepest fish would be, in fact until this expedition, no one had ever seen nor collected a single fish from this entire trench," Professor Jamieson said.
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