Japan’s deepest fish ever captured on camera

Researchers have captured footage of a fish swimming at an unprecedented depth in the ocean—the lowest observation of its kind ever recorded.

The species, a Pseudoliparis-genus snailfish, was captured on camera swimming at a height of 8,336 meters (27,349 feet).

An autonomous “lander” that descended into the Izu-Ogasawara Trench, south of Japan, captured the footage.

According to the senior scientist, the snailfish may be at, or very near, the lowest depth at which fish can exist.

In the Mariana Trench, further south in the Pacific, at 8,178 meters, the deepest fish observation to date was made. As a result, this find breaks the depth record by 158 meters.

Prof. Alan Jamieson told BBC News that “if this record is broken, it would only be by minute increments, potentially by just a few metres.”

Fish would probably be found as deep as 8,200–8,400 meters, according to a forecast made ten years ago by a deep-sea biologist from the University of Western Australia. Over ten years of global research have verified this.