Researchers have found the deepest living fish ever discovered, a sea ghost, at a staggering depth of 26,716 feet – over 5 miles deep. The Mariana Trench located in the Western Pacific near Guam hosts the deepest place on earth, and has been the focus of high profile voyages to conquer its deepest point, Challenger Deep. A recent expedition to the Trench onboard Research Vessel Falkor targeted multiple depths and found active thriving communities of animals. The expedition set many new records such as the deepest rock samples ever collected and new species including the deepest fish ever recorded.
A compilation of video footage captured from the University of Aberdeen’s Hadal-Lander in the Mariana Trench from 5000m to 10,545 m deep. The large fish inhabit the shallower depth (5000 to 6500m) are rat-tails, cusk eels and eel pouts. At the mid depths (6500 to 8000m) are the supergiant amphipods and the small pink snailfish. The fragile snailfish at 8145m is now the deepest living fish. At depth greater than 8500m, only large swarms of small scavenging amphipods are visible. The footage was taken during the HADES-M cruise on Schmidt Ocean Institute’s Research Vessel ‘Falkor’.
Copyright SOI/HADES/University of Aberdeen (Dr. Alan Jamieson)
For the entire article directly from the researchers, click here : New Species and Surprising Findings in the Mariana Trench
0:02 – Scavenging rat-tail eats bait at 5040m deep
0:15 – Large cusk eels at 4998m
0:23 – Large Decapod shrimps at 6010m
0:27 – Large cusk eel, called Bassozetus feeds at bait at 5040m
0:35 – A rat-tail, a cusk eel and an eel pout at 5040m
0:40 – A large cusk eel called Barathrites feeding at bait at 5040m
0:48 – A large supergiant amphipod approaching bait and starting to feed at 6141m
1:05 – Two large supergiant amphipod, one of which is being attached by cusk eels at 6141m
1:22 – Rat-tails, decapods, supergiants and snailfish at 7012m
1:31 – New species of snailfish at 7485m
1:40 – New deepest fish record of fragile snailfish at 8145m, with swarms of normal amphipods
1:58 – Swarms of amphipods in the second deepest place on Earth, The Sirena Deep at 10,545m deep
