The previous record was set at a depth of 8,178 meters from the Mariana Trench.
The research team has made an exceptional fish observation in the Pacific Ocean. The team managed to photograph a sucker fish belonging to the Pseudoliparis genus at a record depth of up to 8,336 meters, The British broadcasting company BBC reports (you will switch to another service).
The previous record was set at the Mariana Trench at a depth of 8,178 meters. So the newest discovery beats the depth record with 158 meters.
The sucker fish was captured by a camera system dropped into the well in Izu-Ogasawara, south of Japan.
Professor at the University of Western Australia, founder of the Minderoo-UWA Deep Sea Research Centre Alan Jamieson according to the fish is very close to the maximum depth at which fish can survive.
– If this record is broken, it would only be broken just barely, maybe by a few meters, Jamieson says to the BBC.
Suckers survive under extreme pressure
All in all, there are more than 300 different species of sucker fish in the world’s waters.
Sucker fish have adapted to life in the cold waters and extreme pressure conditions of the Arctic and Antarctic. At a depth of eight kilometers, they experience 800 times the pressure of the ocean surface.
The jelly-like body is one factor that explains why individuals survive even in challenging conditions. Sucker fish also eat small crustaceans, which are abundant in the ocean depths.
However, not all suckers live in the depths of the seas. Some individuals also live in shallow water bodies such as river estuaries, i.e. river mouth areas.