Fish is filmed at a record depth of 8.3 km – 01/04/2023 – Science

Scientists have filmed a fish swimming at an extraordinary depth in the ocean, making it the deepest observation ever made.

The species — a type of fish in the Liparidae family and Pseudoliparis genus — was filmed swimming at a depth of 8,336 meters.

The animal was recorded by a camera attached to a metallic structure operated remotely and dropped into the oceanic trench of Izu-Ogasawara, south of Japan.

The fish filmed were at or very close to the maximum depth at which a fish can survive, according to Alan Jamieson, a professor at the University of Western Australia and lead researcher on the study that recorded the animal.

The previous deepest observation of fish was made at 8,178 meters in the South Pacific in the Mariana Trench. This discovery in Japan therefore breaks the depth record by 158 m.

“If this new record is broken it will only be by a very small difference, potentially just a few metres,” Jamieson told BBC News.

A researcher of the deepest regions of the ocean, Jamieson made a prediction 10 years ago that fish would likely be found at depths from 8,200 m to 8,400 m. A decade of research around the world has confirmed this prediction.

notable animals

The young specimen of Pseudoliparis was filmed by a camera system attached to a metallic structure and launched over the side of the DSSV Pressure Drop vessel. A lure was added to the structure to attract marine life.

Although the fish was not caught to identify exactly what its species was, several fish were caught at a slightly shallower depth in the Japan Trench, at 8,022 m.

The fish captured were also from the Liparidae family, of the species Pseudoliparis belyaeviand set the record for “fish caught in the deepest place in the ocean”.

Liparidae fish are amazing. There are over 300 species, many of which live in shallow water and can be found in river estuaries.

But species in this family have also adapted to the cold Arctic and Antarctic waters and the extreme pressure conditions that exist in the world’s deepest trenches.

At 8 km deep, they are under a pressure of more than 80 megapascals – 800 times the pressure at the surface of the ocean.

Their gelatinous bodies allow them to survive. An added advantage is that it lacks a swim bladder, a gas-filled organ found in many fish and used to control buoyancy — which would suffer from high pressure.

The way they feed also favors life in the depths. They eat by suction and consume tiny crustaceans, many of which exist in ocean trenches.

Professor Jamieson says the discovery of a fish at a greater depth than that found in the Mariana Trench is likely due to the slightly warmer waters of the Izu-Ogasawara Trench.

“We predicted the deeper fish would be there and we predicted it would be a Liparidae,” he said. “I get frustrated when people say we don’t know anything about the bottom of the sea. We do. Things are changing so fast.”

Jamieson is the founder of the Minderoo-UWA Deep Sea Research Center. On that expedition, which also explored the Ryukyu Trench, he worked with a team from the University of Tokyo’s University of Maritime Science and Technology.

The DSSV Pressure Drop vessel and its manned submarine called Limiting Factor had been used by American adventurer Victor Vescovo in 2018 and 2019 to visit the deepest parts of Earth’s five major oceans. The Texan became the first person in history to complete this “circuit”, and Jamieson acted as lead scientist in the endeavor.

The ship and submarine were sold last year to marine research organization Inkfish and have now been sent for refurbishment in San Diego, USA.

They, too, have been renamed — the ship is now Dagon and the submarine is —Bakunawa and will return to sea in June, with Jamieson again acting as chief scientist.

Jamieson, who was born in Scotland, is credited with discovering not only the fish in the deepest reaches of the oceans, but also the octopus, jellyfish and squid of the deep.

This text was originally published here.