They catch fish that live at 8,300 meters, the deepest depth recorded so far

Scientists from the University of Western Australia and the Tokyo University of Marine Science and Technology have managed to locate a snailfish, which was caught at a depth of the sea never before recorded.: 8,336 meters. The record was set in the Izu-Ogasawara Trench in southern Japan, where they are conducting a 10-year study of the world’s deepest fish populations.

It is an unknown species of snailfish of the genus Pseudoliparis, which was captured by one of the cameras of the research vessel DSSV Pressure Drop at a depth of 8,336 metres. Days later, in the Japan Trench, the team of scientists collected two fish of the same species in traps at a depth of 8,022 meters.

Previously, the deepest snailfish ever was at 7,703 meters in 2008, while scientists had never been able to collect fish below 8,000 meters.

“What’s significant is that it shows how far out in the ocean a particular type of fish will go,” said marine biologist Alan Jamieson, founder of the Minderoo-UWA Deep Sea Research Center, which led the expedition.

Scientists are cruising in the trenches of Japan as part of a 10-year study of the world’s deepest fish stocks. Snailfish are members of the family Liparidae, and while most snailfish live in shallow waters, others survive in some of the deepest depths on record, Jamieson said.

During last year’s two-month investigation, three “landers” (automated marine robots equipped with high-resolution cameras) jumped into three trenches, the Japan, Izu-Ogasawara and Ryukyu trenches, at different depths.

These two fish were caught at a depth of just over 8,000 meters in the Japan Trench in the North Pacific Ocean. University of Western Australia In the Izu-Ogasawara Trench, images showed the deepest snailfish floating peacefully alongside other crustaceans on the seabed.

Jamieson classified the fish as juvenile and said that younger deep-sea snailfish often stay as deep as possible to avoid being eaten by larger predators swimming at shallower depths.

Another video shot between 7,500 and 8,200 meters in the same trench showed a colony of fish and crustaceans chewing on baits attached to an underwater robot.