Check out the deepest-swimming fish ever caught on camera

April 5th, 2023

An image shows snailfish swimming around a baited camera more than 27,000 feet below the surface in the Izu-Ogasawara Trench off the coast of Japan. (University of Western Australia)

Updated April 5, 2023 at 7:49 AM ET

Those who’ve wondered what lurks in the dark depths of the ocean have a new answer.

Scientists working off the coast of Japan say they’ve managed to capture images of the deepest–swimming fish ever caught on camera.

The unknown snailfish species, of the genus Pseudoliparis, was recorded swimming in the Izu-Ogasawara Trench at a depth of 8,336 meters — or more than 27,000 feet down.

“We have spent over 15 years researching these deep snailfish; there is so much more to them than simply the depth, but the maximum depth they can survive is truly astonishing,” University of Western Australia professor Alan Jamieson said in a press release.

The fish was recorded during an August 2022 mission to several trenches around Japan, which included teams from the Minderoo-UWA Deep Sea Research Centre and Tokyo University of Marine Science and Technology. The trip was part of a decade-long study of the world’s deepest fish populations.

Researchers released video footage from baited cameras that show several of the whitish-blue deep-sea fish swimming by. The particular fish that holds the record for the deepest ever found was a small juvenile.

On the same trip, researchers collected two snailfish from traps in the Japan Trench at a depth of 8,022 meters, which they believe to be the only fish caught deeper than eight kilometers.

“The Japanese trenches were incredible places to explore; they are so rich in life, even all the way at the bottom,” Jamieson added.

According to Guinness World Records, the previous record for the deepest fish was a Mariana snailfish (P. swirei) observed at 26,831 feet in the Mariana Trench in the western Pacific on May 18, 2017.