Deepest-ever fish caught and filmed off Japan by scientists

A fish has been caught more than eight kilometers below the sea surface for the first time ever – and filmed even deeper – by a joint Japanese-Australian scientific expedition.

The chief scientist of the expedition, Prof. Alan Jamieson, said on Monday that two snailfish were caught in a trap set 8,022 meters deep in the Japan Trough, south of Japan, during a two-month trip by a team from the University of Western Australia (UWA). ) and Tokyo University of Marine Science.

The snailfish, from Pseudoliparis belyaevi species, the first caught below 8,000 meters, the expedition said. It was not immediately known how large the fish was, but the species was recorded to be nearly 11 centimeters (4.3 inches) long.

A remotely operated camera launched from the DSSV Pressure Drop by a joint expedition, as part of a 10-year study of the deepest fish population on the planet, also recorded an unknown species of snailfish swimming at a depth of 8,336 meters in the Izu-Ogasawara Trough in southern part of Japan.

“Japan’s trenches are an incredible place to explore; they are lifelike, even at the bottom,” said Jamieson, founder of the Minderoo-UWA Deep Sea Research Centre.

“We tell people from a young age, when they’re two or three, that the deep sea is a scary place you shouldn’t go and it grows with you,” Jamieson said.

“We don’t appreciate the fact that (the deep sea) is the basis of most of the planet Earth and its resources need to be understood and how they can affect it and how it works.”