'Deepest ever' living fish filmed

Although fish from the deep oceans have been found and documented (dead), scientists are now able to film them in their living state.

A UK-Japan team found the 17-strong shoal at depths of 7.7km (4.8 miles) in the Japan Trench in the Pacific - and captured the deep sea animals on film.

Using special submersibles that can withstand extreme pressures experienced in the deep, cameras can now send back the images of creatures never before seen 'in a living state'.

"No-one has ever seen fish alive at these depths before - you just never know what you are going to see when you get down there."

Scientists believed that most creatures at this depth (4.8 miles UW) would be slow/sluggish in movement as to save well needed energy, but as the video shows, these fish are quite active at this depth.

I will be anticipating the new discoveries/creatures they find.


Its almost sounds like a perfect intro to a 'creature-feature movie',... the new pictures are brought back from the unexplored trench with something 'unexplained' in the back ground. lol (wishful thinking).

He told BBC News: "Nobody has really been able to look at these depths before - I think we will see some fish living much deeper."

Waaoow man...

I always loved the deep ocean research... Down there, the true secrets are hiding out. We know more about space than about the depts of the sea. I just find it so much more thrilling, and most of all, far more relevant than staring into the cosmos.

Why space exploration gets so much more funding than oceanic ones is a mystery to me. Are we not more interested about our own planet than possible other, millions of light years away? Apperntly not. That is just stupid...

Great thread! Keep it up!

great find! i myself love underwater videography and photography, and have always wanted to go far past or atleast to the crushing point.

As ATS is not working properly for me, I don't know if the link has been posted.


here is a link to the video of the fish.

news.bbc.co.uk...

reply to post by blupblup


They look like albino tadpoles

Exciting stuff, have seen footage of some very strange looking creatures down there. really love this sort of thing.

Ive checked for the footage pertaining to this event and its on the bbc website which can be found here:-

news.bbc.co.uk...

and this is a shot from the video also found on the same website.



btw, thanks for the find, amazing stuff

edit, just realised someones already linked the video but i just found another:-

Live fish caught at record depth dated July08
news.bbc.co.uk...

footage isnt too clear though


[edit on 8-10-2008 by enduser]

reply to post by Valorian


They are Pseudoliparis amblystomopsis, part of the snailfish family


Source

[edit on 8/10/08 by blupblup]

reply to post by blupblup



Much appreciated

In the approx. 45mins it took me to hit the 'send' button, I inadvertedly forgot to post the link.

Nice to see there are others with the same interests in the mysterious deep sea, and yes... they spend way much more on space exploration than sea exploration.

reply to post by Grailkeeper


You're most welcome

Space exploration receives more funding than deep sea funding because through greed and pollution we are quickly turning the planet into an inhabitable wasteland, and as such we are soon going to need to find somewhere else to colonize and move to if we are to survive as a species. That being said I'm deeply interested in both deep sea ecology as well as astronomy, and am saddened by the fact that the time at which we're going to need to find a new place to live is approaching more rapidly than the time we will fully understand our own planet. I only hope that once colonizing Mars or some other habitable zone we still come back and learn as much as we can about the planet that sprung us into being and suported us as a race for as long as the Earth has.

- Mike Brown

Originally posted by Raud
Waaoow man...

I always loved the deep ocean research... Down there, the true secrets are hiding out. We know more about space than about the depts of the sea. I just find it so much more thrilling, and most of all, far more relevant than staring into the cosmos.

Why space exploration gets so much more funding than oceanic ones is a mystery to me. Are we not more interested about our own planet than possible other, millions of light years away? Apperntly not. That is just stupid...

Great thread! Keep it up!

Space exploration gets more funding because of (IMO) 2 reasons....

1. Its easier to study space than the deep ocean.

2. Because we're more interested in travelling into space than the crushing depths of the worlds oceans.

Technology is steadily making deeper and deeper research possible. What do you hope for us to find down there? A sunken spaceship lying dormant? I hope that we find a new species of deep sea animal that has healing qualities. Maybe the cure to AIDS or Cancer is down there

Never know really....but great find, always interesting to find new life down in the depths

Strange looking things aren't they? Wonder what they would taste like friend in batter with a portion of chips and mushy peas?

I’ve always loved fish, since they’re so different from us, in both the way they look and the way they live in their environment. I always find it interesting to see the new discoveries as we are able to search deeper and deeper into the ocean, and seeing the different ways these deep-sea dwelling fish have adapted to their harsher living conditions. There has to be many many new species to find down there!

Those are silly looking things; they look like a cross between tadpoles and knifefish