New Species of Translucent, Gelatinous Fish Discovered in the Deep Sea

Outfitted with glossy, swishing tails and fan-like fins, snailfish now come in delightful shades of pink, purple, and blue. But without the pressures of the deep sea to support them, their fragile, boneless bodies melt when they crest the surface of the sea.

This week, scientists from Newcastle University report the discovery of three new species of snailfish nearly 25,000 feet below the surface of the sea. The efforts were borne out of a collaboration between 40 scientists from 17 different nations trawling the waters of the Atacama Trench, a cavernous, rocky gash near the South American coast of the Pacific Ocean.

The trench is home to pressures approximately 750 times what we feel at sea level, and frigid temperatures just a hair above freezing.* But the newly discovered snailfish are perfectly content to swim these hellish waters, due in part to their gelatinous bodies, which are almost entirely free of bones, save for the little structures in their inner ears that help with balance.

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The diet of snailfish consists primarily of small benthic crustaceans, mollusks, polychaete worms, and other small invertebrates. Some species are also piscivorous.

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An exploration to one of the deepest places on earth has captured rare footage of what is believed to be three new species of the elusive Snailfish.