DEEPEST FISH IN THE OCEAN CAPTURED ON CAMERA FOR THE FIRST TIME
It seems researchers have been studying the ocean for ages, but there are still so many unknowns at its depths. New creatures are always being discovered and secrets revealed. Recently, a team of scientists from the University of Western Australia and Tokyo University of Marine Science and Technology broke the record by catching the world's deepest marine fish, which lives in the depths of the Izu-Ogasawara Trench off the coast of Japan at a breathtaking 8,336 meters (about 27,329 feet).
The unknown snailfish in the footage belongs to the genus Pseudoliparis. It looks like a large light-colored tadpole with fins on its sides. Unlike other fish species, these snail fish have neither scales nor a swim bladder. The lack of the latter trait allows them to live under the extreme pressure of the deepest parts of the rift.
Not only did the scientists find the deep-sea fish ever caught on camera, they also caught two Pseudoliparis belyaevi snails using traps set at a depth of about 8,022 meters (26,319 ft). This is the first time a fish has been caught with "baited cameras" at depths greater than 8,000 meters (26,247 feet), according to a University of Western Australia press release.
The Izu-Ogasawara isn't as deep because the extra famous Marianas Trench, in which now no longer that many creatures were determined on the 8,000-meter mark as compared to the abundance of fish withinside the Izu-Ogasawara Trench. “In different trenches including the Mariana Trench, we have been locating them at an increasing number of deeper depths simply creeping over that 8,000-meter mark in fewer and less numbers, however round Japan they're in reality pretty abundant,” stated Professor Alan Jamieson of the Minderoo-UWA Deep Sea Research Centre, who led the expedition.
“The Japanese trenches have been exceptional locations to explore; they're so wealthy in life, even all of the manner on the bottom. We have spent over 15 years discovering those deep snailfish; there may be a lot extra to them than truely the intensity, however the most intensity they could live on is truely astonishing.”
In an interview with IFL Science, Jamison explained that while the tremendous pressures of depth shape life in these environments, there are other factors as well. "Everyone thinks depth is the most important thing in these trenches," says Jamison. "The temperature can also make a difference." Because the bottom of the Mariana Trench is colder because it's closer to the Southern Ocean, fish don't thrive at those depths as well as in the Izu-Ogasawara Trench. "If someone finds fish at greater depths, then not much," postulates the researcher.
These results are the result of a 10-year study of fish populations in the depths of the Izu-Ogasawara Trench. "The really big message for me," Jamison says, "isn't necessarily that they live at 8,336 meters, but that we have enough information about that environment to predict that those trenches will actually have the deepest fish, before this one." expedition, no one had ever seen or collected a single fish from that entire trench.”