Never-before-seen fish: Researchers discuss new species found more than 3 miles under the sea
By Hillary Andrews
Published December 9, 2022 1:24PM
Scientists Down Under went to new depths to see a world never-before explored with human eyes.
Australian researchers searched deeper than scuba divers and submarines could go. Cameras explored the frigid sea bottom, under enormous pressure, down to 3.6 miles under the surface.
And look what they found…
Highfin Lizard fish (Credit: Museums Victoria)
"There are wonderful things that live in the Twilight Zone with bioluminescence, lights and big fangs," Dianne Bray, Senior Collections Manager at the Museums Victoria Research Institute in Australia, told FOX Weather. "The deep sea is our least known environment, and we captured just a tiny amount."
The "Twilight Zone" sits on massive, ancient volcanoes, now seamounts, that are 40 to 120 million years old. The largest mountains in Australia, above or below water, can be 42 miles across, and the only surface evidence of them is the tiny, tippy-tops that we know as Christmas and Cocos (Keeling) Islands. The area is Australia’s newest Marine Parks, designated in March.
The ship started in Darwin, Australia and motored 3,000 miles west to the area around Cocos Keeling Islands. Cocos is only 1,692 miles southwest of Jakarta. The trip terminated in Freemantle, Australia. The 8,000-mile journey took 35 days. (FOX Weath
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"And the seamounts get studded with these enormous monsters, and yet we know nothing about them," explained Tim O’Hara, chief scientist of the mission, before his 35-day journey to the unknown. "No scientific expedition has been there to look at the biology or the fauna down there. So we'll be the first."
They welcomed the never-before-seen blind eel. It is covered in loose, transparent and gelatinous skin.
By Hillary Andrews
Published December 9, 2022 1:24PM
Scientists Down Under went to new depths to see a world never-before explored with human eyes.
Australian researchers searched deeper than scuba divers and submarines could go. Cameras explored the frigid sea bottom, under enormous pressure, down to 3.6 miles under the surface.
And look what they found…
Highfin Lizard fish (Credit: Museums Victoria)"There are wonderful things that live in the Twilight Zone with bioluminescence, lights and big fangs," Dianne Bray, Senior Collections Manager at the Museums Victoria Research Institute in Australia, told FOX Weather. "The deep sea is our least known environment, and we captured just a tiny amount."
The "Twilight Zone" sits on massive, ancient volcanoes, now seamounts, that are 40 to 120 million years old. The largest mountains in Australia, above or below water, can be 42 miles across, and the only surface evidence of them is the tiny, tippy-tops that we know as Christmas and Cocos (Keeling) Islands. The area is Australia’s newest Marine Parks, designated in March.
The ship started in Darwin, Australia and motored 3,000 miles west to the area around Cocos Keeling Islands. Cocos is only 1,692 miles southwest of Jakarta. The trip terminated in Freemantle, Australia. The 8,000-mile journey took 35 days. (FOX WeathExpand
"And the seamounts get studded with these enormous monsters, and yet we know nothing about them," explained Tim O’Hara, chief scientist of the mission, before his 35-day journey to the unknown. "No scientific expedition has been there to look at the biology or the fauna down there. So we'll be the first."
They welcomed the never-before-seen blind eel. It is covered in loose, transparent and gelatinous skin.
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