Now, That's Deep! Mariana Trench Fish Lives 5 Miles Down

[Judi Lynn]

By Mindy Weisberger, Senior Writer | November 30, 2017 01:45pm ET


The dark and chilly depths of the ocean's so-called "midnight zone" thousands of feet below the surface are home to numerous species of bizarre-looking and fearsome fish. Many of these creatures have oversized jaws filled with massive teeth.

But a deceptively vulnerable-looking fish is not only right at home in the very deepest ocean environment on Earth — where few creatures can survive — it's also one of the region's top predators.

And now, for the first time, scientists have collected specimens of this unusual creature. Dubbed the Mariana snailfish, it swims in the Mariana Trench near Guam, at a depth of about 26,200 feet (8,000 meters). [Infographic: Tallest Mountain to Deepest Ocean Trench]

The snailfish's small, pink and scaleless body hardly seems capable of surviving in such a punishing environment, but this fish is full of surprises, researchers reported in a new study. The animal appears to dominate in this ecosystem, going deeper than any other fish and exploiting the absence of competitors by gobbling up the plentiful invertebrate prey that inhabit the trench, the study authors wrote.

More:
https://www.livescience.com/61065-mariana-trench-snailfish-deepest-vertebrate.html?utm_source=notification

[longship]

1. Pics!!

Cute little guy, eh?