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Record fish find
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Scientists believe they have seen the deepest-ever living fish, in the Pacific's Japan Trench.
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A joint British and Japanese research team found and videoed a shoal of 17 creatures on the bottom at the massive depth of 7.7km (4.8 miles). The 30cm-long, pale-coloured fish could be seen swimming about surprisingly energetically and eating shrimps.
The Hadeep research project began last year and has involved scientists from the University of Aberdeen's Oceanlab and the University of Tokyo's Ocean Research Institute. They have concentrated their lifeform studies on trench systems mainly around the Pacific Rim, at depths from 6-11km.
Funding has come from Britain's Natural Environment Research Council and Japan's Nippon Foundation. Research equipment has included custom-designed 'landers', highly pressure-resistant contraptions which have legs to stand on the seabed and, with lights and cameras at the ready, lie in wait for any passing creatures.
The newly discovered fish, named Pseudoliparis ambylstomopsis, is not the deepest ever located. That honour goes to the species Abyssobrotula galatheae which, in 1970, came up in a dredge from the bottom of the Puerto Rico Trench at a depth of 8km (5 miles). But it was dead by the time it was observed at the surface.
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