An image shows a snail swimming around a camera baited more than 27,000 feet below the surface in the Izu-Ogasawara Trench off the coast of Japan.
University of Western Australia
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University of Western Australia
An image shows a snail swimming around a camera baited more than 27,000 feet below the surface in the Izu-Ogasawara Trench off the coast of Japan.
University of Western Australia
Those who have wondered what lurks in the dark depths of the ocean have a new answer.
Scientists working off the coast of Japan say they have managed to capture images of the deepest–swimming fish ever caught on camera.
The unknown species of snail, of the genus Pseudolipariswas recorded swimming in the Izu-Ogasawara Trench at a depth of 8,336 meters – or more than 27,000 feet down.
“We have spent over 15 years studying these deep-sea snails; there’s a lot more to them than just the depth, but the depths they can live at is truly amazing,” University of Western Australia professor Alan Jamieson said in a press release.
The fish were recorded during an August 2022 mission to several trenches around Japan, which included teams from the Minderoo-UWA Deep Sea Research Center and the Tokyo University of Marine Science and Technology. The trip was part of a ten-year study of the world’s deepest fish populations.
Researchers have released video footage from baited cameras that shows a number of deep-sea bluefish swimming by. The special fish that holds the record for the deepest ever found was a small juvenile.
On the same trip, researchers collected two snail fish from traps in the Japan Trench at a depth of 8,022 meters, which they believe are the only fish caught deeper than eight kilometers.
“The Japanese trenches were amazing places to explore; they are so rich in life, even at the bottom,” Jamieson said.
According to Guinness World Records, the previous record for the deepest fish was the Mariana snailfish (P. wirei) observed at 26,831 feet in the Mariana Trench in the western Pacific Ocean on May 18, 2017.
