Scientists set new record by finding world’s deepest fish at 8 336m

Posted by David Henning on 4 April 2023

A snailfish was photographed in the Izu-Ogasawara Trench near Japan, making it the deepest recorded fish ever caught on camera.

‘We have spent over 15 years researching these deep snailfish; there is so much more to them than simply the depth, but the maximum depth they can survive is truly astonishing,’ said University of Western Australia (UWA) professor, Alan Jamieson.

Scientists dropped an autonomous “lander” camera into the north Pacific Ocean trench as part of a two-month expedition in August 2022. The mission was to explore the zu-Ogasawara and Ryukyu trenches at 8,000m, 9,300m, and 7,300m deep as part of a 10-year study into the deepest fish populations in the world.

UWA Professor Alan Jamieson, founder of the Minderoo-UWA Deep Sea Research Centre and chief scientist of the expedition, worked with a team from the Tokyo University of Marine Science and Technology to deploy baited cameras in the deepest parts of the trenches.

In the Izu-Ogasawara Trench, the expedition team managed to film the deepest record of a fish, an unknown sailfish species of the genus Pseudoliparis, at a depth of 8 336m.

A few days later, in the Japan Trench, the team collected two fish in traps from 8 022m deep. These snailfish, Pseudoliparis belyaevi, were the first fish to be collected from depths greater than 8 000m –  having only ever been seen at a depth of 7 703m in 2008.

‘We have spent over 15 years researching these deep snailfish; there is so much more to them than simply the depth, but the maximum depth they can survive is truly astonishing,’ professor Jamieson said.

The solitary snailfish recorded, which is now the deepest fish ever recorded, seems to be a rather small juvenile. Juvenile snailfish, unlike other deep-sea fish, tend to live at 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,’ Professor Jamieson concluded.

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