This is a group of snailfish-the deepest living fish in existence-filmed alive for the first time in history in the name science and nausea. They live at depths of 4.6 miles (7,500 meters) or more, so scientists had to develop new camera technology capable of supporting a pressure of 8,000 tonnes per square metre-"the equivalent to that of 1600 elephants standing on the roof of a Mini car"-for a period of days.The submersible platform reached 4.78 miles down the Japan Sea trench, and had to stay there for two days to be able to obtain this crystal clear footage, taking a total of five hours to reach the seabed. The camera equipment was designed specifically for this mission by the engineers at OceanLab-the sub-sea research facility of the University of Aberdeen. According to project leader Dr Alan Jamieson, the resulting video taking during those two days is "absolutely amazing".
We got some absolutely amazing footage from 7700 metres. More fish than we or anyone in the world would ever have thought possible at these depths. It's incredible. These videos vastly exceed all our expectations from this research. We thought the deepest fishes would be motionless, solitary, fragile individuals eking out an existence in a food-sparse environment. But these fish aren't loners. The images show groups that are sociable and active-possibly even families-feeding on little shrimp, yet living in one of the most extreme environments on Earth.
Whatever. Any fish that have teeth that do this... S ...are not my friends. [OceanLab via Daily Mail] Video and image credit: Natural Environment Research Council and University of Aberdeen.