Deepest living fish scooped up, said to be "cute"

William Atkins
Tuesday, 07 October 2008 22:37

Science - Biology

The team was conducting research as part of the Hadeep project, a joint effort of the University of Aberdeen’s Oceanlab and the University of Tokyo’s Ocean Research Institute. They were based on the Japanese research ship Hakuho-Maru.

Dr. Monty Priede, another member of the group, stated, "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." [University of Aberdeen]

Priede added, "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." [University of Aberdeen]

Professor Priede commented on the habits of this deepest-sea fish, "And this video is pretty tantalising - the fact that there are 17 of them implies that they could well be a family group, begging the question of whether some form of parental care exists for these fish." [University of Aberdeen]

The just over one minute video of the active fish swimming and feeding is found on the BBC website entitled “'Deepest ever' living fish filmed.”

Priede stated, "Nobody has seen fish alive before at these depths - only pickled in museums - and by the time they come up from the depths they look in a pretty sorry state. But these fish are actually very cute." [BBC News]

Dr. Jamieson concluded, "Nobody has really been able to look at these depths before - I think we will see some fish living much deeper." [BBC News]

The media release "Deepest living fishes caught on camera for the first time" from the University of Aberdeen provides more information on the fish.