The new species may have evolved from the cold-adapted species of the Southern Ocean. If we only had a single lineage to study, we could never be sure which traits were just part of that lineage and which are the deep-sea secret sauce.” “Paraliparis selti provides a fantastic opportunity to explore what allows fish to live so deep. Lightning struck twice and there is something special about this Family. Finding this new species tells us that it’s bigger than that.
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Maybe it was a series of lucky accidents, a chance fluke, that happened in one lineage. “We have been wondering for some time just what makes this type of fish so good at living deep. With engineering-built force we can only clumsily visit these animals for a short time. It then films these delicate and beautiful animals perfectly adapted to this extreme environment. “For me to get a camera down to where these animals live, it’s made of inches thick stainless steel and sapphire glass. They are not at all what we expect from a deep-sea fish and I love to show people that the world’s deepest fishes are actually pretty cute. Study lead author, Dr Thom Linley, a visiting researcher at Newcastle University said: “I find this family of fishes absolutely fascinating. The description is published in the journal Marine Biodiversity. The team named the new species Paraliparis selti, meaning blue in the Kunza language of the indigenous peoples of the Atacama Desert. Significantly, this is the first time this genus has been found living in the hadal zone. Species in this genus are particularly abundant in the Southern Ocean of the Antarctic and are rarely found deeper than 2,000 m. The new species belongs is a member of the genus Paraliparis.
To the team's surprise, the new species appears to be a separate coloniser of the Atacama Trench. The team used a 3D x-ray technique called microcomputed tomography (micro-CT) and DNA barcoding to see where the new species fit within the snailfish family. With large eyes and striking colour, it resembles other species of snailfishes that are found living in much shallower waters. The small blue fish, seen from about 6,000 to 7,600 m deep, doesn’t look like other hadal snailfish. Two lander systems from Newcastle University recorded three types of hadal snailfish and one of them was not like the others. The team, including Newcastle University scientists, deployed free-falling landers to sample the sparse deep-sea creatures around cameras and traps with bait. In 2018, an international team of scientists studied the Atacama Trench, an expansive trench that runs along the west coast of South America as a deep underwater valley that mirrors the Andes Mountains.
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