Off the coast of Japan, scientists from the Tokyo University of Marine Science and Technology and the University of Western Australia have filmed the deepest fish ever seen at the bottom of...Off the coast of Japan, a fish filmed at a depth of more than 8000 meters, a first To observe the animal, the researchers lowered from the side of a ship cameras weighted with a chassis and projectors (screenshot). © University of Western Australia Text by: RFI Follow 2 min Off the coast of Japan, scientists from Tokyo University of Marine Science and Technology and the University of Western Austr

Off the coast of Japan, a fish filmed at a depth of more than 8000 meters, a first

To observe the animal, the researchers lowered from the side of a ship cameras weighted with a chassis and projectors (screenshot). © University of Western Australia

Text by: RFI Follow

2 min

Off the coast of Japan, scientists from Tokyo University of Marine Science and Technology and the University of Western Australia filmed the deepest fish ever seen on the seabed. The snailfish swam 8,336 metres below sea level.

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With our correspondent in Tokyo, Frédéric Charles

The snailfish was discovered off the coast of Japan, in the Izu-Ogasawara Trench, one of the deepest on the planet. Scientists believe that this new record for observing a fish at such a depth will not be beaten, or by very little, because the fish was swimming at an extreme depth, at the maximum limit in which its aquatic vertebrae that have developed gelatinous bodies devoid of swim bladders can live.

According to scientists, the greater depths will probably not be home to any fish, but to live microorganisms. Some species of this snailfish of the genus Pseudoliparis – there are more than 300 – have become accustomed to living in extreme depths, where the pressure of the water column is 800 times higher than on land.

The study of snailfish

To observe the animal, the researchers lowered from the side of a ship cameras weighted with a chassis and searchlights. The fish were attracted by the light of the cameras using crustacean bait. Due to lack of visibility, the researchers could not identify the precise species of the small Japanese fish. At a shallower depth, they were able to bring other snail fish to the surface for study.

Before this snailfish, the previous record for the deepest sighting of a fish was photographed in 2018 at a depth of 8,178 meters in the ocean trench of the Mariana Islands, near the island of Guam.

#FishADay Pseudoliparis sp. A new depth record for the genus (juvenile of an unidentified species) has just been announced!! 8,336 m deep in the Izu-Ogasawara trench southwest of Japan. Only five mountains in the world are taller than that is deep. https://t.co/hPSCmccwcD

— Dr. Hannah Owens (@HannahOish) April 3, 2023

► Also listen: High Seas Treaty: "The ocean is the guarantor of climate stability"

Off the coast of Japan, a fish filmed at a depth of more than 8000 meters, a first

Off the coast of Japan, a fish filmed at a depth of more than 8000 meters, a first

The study of snailfish

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