Nature & Environment

Scientists capture footage of deepest ever fish to be caught on camera

By T.K. Randall
April 2, 2023

Image: AI-generated (Midjourney) 10 years ago, deep-sea scientist Prof Alan Jamieson of the University of Western Australia made a prediction that the limits at which fish could survive in the deepest depths of the ocean was somewhere between 8,200 meters and 8,400 meters beneath the surface.

Since then, multiple studies have confirmed that this is indeed the case.

Previously, the deepest actual observation of a fish was made at around 8,178 meters down, but now this record has been broken in spectacular fashion after scientists filming from an autonomous lander dropped into the Izu-Ogasawara Trench managed to film multiple fish at a depth of 8,336 meters.The animals, which came to feast upon bait attached to the rig, were thought to be a type of snailfish.

Given that this observation beats the previous record by a whopping 158 meters, it is unlikely that it is even possible for fish to actually survive much further down than this.

"If this record is broken, it would only be by minute increments, potentially by just a few meters," Prof Jamieson told BBC News.

Source: BBC News

Tags: Fish