Deep-Sea Fish Filmed 8000 Meters Plus Underwater

NHK and the Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology (JAMSTEC) successfully filmed fish over 8000 meters underwater to signal another step forward in the study of the deep-sea ecological system., it was reported August 24.

That far down below the ocean, the water pressure is said to be extremely high enough to destroy the organic cells, and 8200 meters under water is said to be the deepest limit of organic habitation.

In May this year, the NHK-JAMSTEC team descended an unmanned observation device equipped with a 4K camera in an oceanic trench in Micronesia called the Mariana Trench 8176 meters underwater. The camera had no sooner reached the point than it caught the image of a family of gammaridean amphipod gathering around the bait and filmed one slowly swimming by - a family of Pseudoliparis amblystomopsis 29 centimeters long, white half transparent, with a large head and a fine, long eelish caudal fin.

Pseudoliparis amblystomopsis and its families were observed rather in plentiful in the depths of 7500 and thereabouts but barely in 8175-meter-deep. JAMSTEC assumes 8175 meters or thereabouts may be the deepest limit of their survival.

A USA/UK team had filmed two types of fish three years before at 8145 meters deep and a Chinese group succeeded last April in taking pictures of some fish at 8152 meters deep. The images filmed by NHK-JAMSTEC this time are of fish living in the deepest point underwater so far.

Chief researcher of JAMSTEC, Kazumasa Oguri, comments:

"It was a thrill to have actually witnessed the organics. Great if we could go on collecting samples to further the study of deep sea ecology."

The fish filmed this time is confirmed to be a family of Pseudoliparis amblystomopsis living in the ultra abyssal zone below 6000 meters deep. It is commonly known as Mariana snail fish and has not official nomenclature yet.(Nathan Shiga)

Source: NHK