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To prove that the deep sea is stranger than outer space, scientists have discovered what they thought were three new species of molluscs nearly 25,000 feet (7,500 meters) below the surface of the ocean in the trench of Atacama. The translucent and scaleless creatures look like ghosts that accidentally entered our world through a kind of fault in the space-time continuum.
Located off the coast of Peru and Chile, the 3,700-mile (6,000-km) Atacama Trench culminates at 26,460 feet (8,065 meters). While staying a few thousand meters from the deepest point of the ocean in the Mariana Trench, it is a dark and foreign world of overwhelming pressures and temperatures near freezing point. But as a recent exploration of the trench shows, she is also very much alive.
The Newcastle University-led expedition, which consisted of deploying two offshore "landers" to capture more than 100 hours of video footage, revealed a vibrant trench ecosystem including shrimp-like amphipods and isopods with long legs. The three new snails were the highlight, however.
The pink, blue and purple fish, which will eventually be described in scientific articles and, hopefully, with formal names (I propose Tynamo), are part of the family liparidae, which includes many inhabitants of the deep seabed of the whole world. It even includes the deepest fish ever caught, which Brian Kahn of Earther observed "may or may not be a gelatinous kidney".
Thomas Linley, a marine biologist at Newcastle University, told Earther that while most expeditions to the Abyss send back an unprecedented form of life, "finding three species so different at the same time" was new to him.
In the images of the researchers, we can see snail fish nibble small crustaceans gathered around dead fish deployed as bait. In addition to being "surprisingly active", as Linley puts it, snail fish are just weird, scaleless with small shiny eyes and gelatinous bodies held by the immense pressure of the sea. ;water. (The team took great care to bring a single specimen to the surface without letting it dissolve in a puddle of goo.)
As extraterrestrial as they appear, these fish are not out of reach of human influence. Linely said that amphipods that snails eat can harbor microplastics, which are now spread all over the ocean.
"They would not be spared from any impact on a global scale," he said.
Hopefully, by shedding light on the world in which they live, scientists can help us protect these strange animals. In the meantime, you can sleep comfortably knowing that you will probably never see a close person.
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