Scientists have made a new discovery thousands of meters below the waves, as images of the new world’s deepest fish species have now been recorded. Found 8,336 meters below the ocean surface in the Izu-Ogasawara Trench off the coast of Japan, this species of snailfish, belonging to the genus Pseudoliparis, has been seen swimming.
As BBC News reports, there is speculation that this fish swims at the maximum depth a living creature can survive, as this discovery surpasses that of the previous deepest swimming fish found in the Mariana Trench, at 8,178 m under the waves.
As to why fish probably can’t survive any deeper, at 8,300 meters this snail will experience about 80 megapascals of pressure on its body, which is about 800 times the pressure at the surface of the ocean, and that’s just because their gelatinous bodies manage to survive at such depth.
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