Scientists from Australia and Japan have broken a new record after filming and catching the world’s deepest fish at just over an astonishing 27,000 feet (8.3 kilometers) below sea level.
Teams from the University of Western Australia (UWA) and the Tokyo University of Marine Science and Technology have spent over 15 years researching deep snailfish. In August 2022, the research ship DSSV Pressure Drop set out on an expedition to the North Pacific Ocean and around Japan for a two-month exploration of deep-sea trenches, with the deepest registering approx. 30,511 feet (9,300 meters) below sea level.
UWA professor Alan Jamieson, founder of the Minderoo-UWA Deep Sea Research Centre and chief scientist of the expedition, worked with the team in Japan to set up baited cameras to attract deep marine life. In the Izu-Ogasawara trench, south of Japan, they struck gold, catching an unknown snailfish species of the genus Pseudoliparis on film at a depth of approx 27,349 feet (8,336 meters). UWA shared the extraordinary footage on YouTube in early April and the clip went viral.
Snailfish living from 24,600 to 26,900 feet (7,500 to 8,200 meters) under the surface of the ocean in Izu-Ogasawara Trench. (Courtesy of the University of Western Australia)
“[T]here is so much more to them than simply the depth, but the maximum depth they can survive is truly astonishing,” Jamieson said in a statement. “In other trenches, such as the Mariana Trench, we were finding them at increasingly deeper depths just creeping over that 8,000-meter [approx. 26,240 feet] mark, in fewer and fewer numbers, but around Japan they are really quite abundant.”
(Courtesy of the University of Western Australia)
A few days after the sighting of Pseudoliparis, the teams caught two snailfish in traps at a depth of approx. 26,318 feet (8,022 meters) in the Japan trench. This time from the genus Pseudoliparis belyaevi, the two fish were the first ever to be collected from depths greater than 26,200 feet (8,000 meters). The deepest prior sighting of their genus was at a depth of approx. 25,272 feet (7,703 meters) in 2008.
The specimen that earned the title of deepest fish ever found was a small juvenile; unlike other species of deep-sea fish, young snailfish inhabit the deeper end of their depth range.
“The Japanese trenches were incredible places to explore; they are so rich in life, even all the way at the bottom,” Jamieson said.
World's deepest fish ever caught. (Courtesy of the University of Western Australia)
The deep sea trench exploration, supported by Victor Vescovo at Caladan Oceanic and Inkfish, has not only broken a record but has encouraged scientists that their studies into the deep ocean environs of the North Pacific are paying off.
“The real take-home message, for me, is not necessarily that they are living at 8,336 meters [approx. 27,349 feet], but rather we have enough information on this environment to have predicted that these trenches would be where the deepest fish would be,” Jamieson said. “[I]n fact, until this expedition, no one had ever seen nor collected a single fish from this entire trench.”
