New species of translucent gelatinous fish discovered in the deep sea | Smart News

Fitted with shiny, flared tails and fan-shaped fins, snails are now available in delightful hues of pink, purple and blue. But without the deep sea pressures to support them, their fragile, boneless bodies melt when they reach the surface of the sea.

This week, scientists from Newcastle University report the discovery of three new species of molluscs nearly 25,000 feet below the sea surface. These efforts were the result of a collaboration between 40 scientists from 17 different countries, trawling in the waters of the Atacama pit , a cavernous and rocky cut near the South American coast of the Pacific Ocean.

The trench is at home under pressure about 2,500 times what we feel at sea level, and freezing temperatures just a hair's breadth above the freezing point. But the newly discovered snail fish are perfectly content to swim these hellish waters, thanks in part to their gelatinous bodies, almost entirely free of bone, with the exception of the small structures in their inner ears that help to # 39; balance.

Snail fish do not look anything like what you've been waiting for: with their bulbous heads and tapered ribbon-like bodies, these marine fishes look more like freaking tadpoles than their slow, chained, terrestrial homonyms. But There are more than 100 species of molluscs, and scientists believe that many other species are not described, especially deep in the ocean.

"Something about the snail-fish … allows them to adapt to life in depth," says Thomas Linley, of Newcastle University, one of the scientists Press release. Whatever the adaptations, they serve the molluscs well: according to Linley, although they each have a length of less than a foot, at such depths, they are "the best predators" and "very well fed".

One of the snail fish specimens was even trapped by researchers' traps, equipped with tasty baits to attract fish and video cameras that captured more than 100 hours of video of marine life. Sadly, once raised to the surface, the bodies of the snails "melt quickly" for lack of pressure, but the researchers made every effort to preserve their unique specimen, currently under study.

The three new species will be bequeathed real scientific names once the results published in a scientific journal, David Grossman reports for Popular Mechanics. Until then, they have been nicknamed the pink, violet and blue Atacama snails.

Although ocean waters cover nearly three quarters of the Earth's surface, scientists believe that more than 80% of the underwater realm of life remains unexplored. More than 2,000 new marine species are described each year.

As Maddie Stone to Further reports, most expeditions in the abyss return a new form of life. But even Linley is amazed at "[finding] three species so clearly different at the same time.

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