Overview
- A peer-reviewed paper in Biodiversity Data Journal catalogs at least 108 organism groups across the Japan, Ryukyu, and Izu-Ogasawara trenches down to nearly 10 kilometers.
- Baited cameras recorded a snailfish feeding at 8,336 meters, which is the deepest in-situ observation of a fish on record.
- Submersible transects revealed crinoid meadows around 9,137–9,300 meters and documented the deepest carnivorous sponges at 9,568–9,744 meters.
- The team twice filmed a slow-gliding organism at about 9,137 meters that experts cannot place in any known phylum.
- The imagery also showed human-made debris on the trench floor, signaling that even these extreme habitats receive pollution carried downslope from the surface.