Deepest fish caught and filmed off Japan
Snailfish swimming deep in the Izu-Ogasawara Trench. (Photo: University of Western Australia)
SYDNEY: Scientists have broken the record for the deepest fish ever caught, as well as the deepest fish ever filmed on camera.
Two snailfish were caught in traps set 8,022m underwater in the Japan Trench, south of Japan, during a two-month voyage by a team from the University of Western Australia (UWA) and the Tokyo University of Marine Science.
The snailfish, of the Pseudoliparis belyaevi species, are the first to be caught below 8,000m, the expedition said. This beats the previous record in the Mariana Trench by 158m.
It wasn't immediately clear how big the fish were, but the species has been recorded as reaching a length of close to 11cm.
Remotely operated cameras lowered by the joint expedition, part of a 10-year study into the deepest fish population on the planet, also recorded an unknown snailfish species swimming 8,336m deep in the Izu-Ogasawara Trench off southern Japan.
"The Japanese trenches were incredible places to explore; they are so rich in life, even all the way at the bottom," said expedition's chief scientist, Professor Alan Jamieson, founder of the Minderoo-UWA Deep Sea Research Centre.
"We don't appreciate the fact that it (the deep sea) is fundamentally most of planet Earth and resources should be put into understanding and how to work out how we are affecting it and how it works."
