For an animal, surviving in the ocean’s deepest trenches requires remarkable adaptations: a gelatinous body that can withstand pressure, bioluminescent features to guide it, and a transparent coloration for camouflage in the pitch-black darkness. The combination often gives deep-sea creatures an alien-like look.
But the ocean’s newest deep-sea fish, the bumpy snailfish, proves that not all is strange and scary in the unknown abyss. “It’s pretty adorable,” said Mackenzie Gerringer, a marine biologist at the State University of New York at Geneseo, and a counter to the perception that deep-sea creatures are “monsters.”
The bumpy snailfish was among three new snailfish species discovered off the coast of California, at a depth of over 10,000 feet, from an expedition led by the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute. Dr. Gerringer and her team examined the samples and reported their discovery in a study in the journal Ichthyology & Herpetology in late August.
The deep sea is the largest habitat on the planet, spanning more than 80 percent of the ocean seafloor, and is intimately connected to the rest of the ocean. Snailfish are small saltwater fish that live everywhere from tide pools to the deep sea; the Mariana snailfish holds the record for deepest fish species, thriving 27,000 feet down in the Mariana Trench. The snailfish family includes roughly 450 described species, many of them discovered in just the last two decades. They are distinguished by their scaleless bodies and a disc on their belly that helps shallow-water snailfish stick to rocks or larger fish.
They’re also charismatic. Dr. Gerringer found it “beautiful and interesting” that a creature so delicate in appearance could live in such a harsh environment, she said, showcasing the “really exciting adaptations” of some of these snailfish. Pressures at the bottom of deep-sea trenches can reach more than 15,000 pounds per square inch. “These snailfishes are living in a habitat that’s colder than our refrigerators,” Dr. Gerringer said.
The wide range of snailfish habitats enables scientists to compare species that live at the surface with another, very closely related species that lives in the trenches. “Their depth distribution as a family is just kind of amazing,” said James Orr, a fisheries biologist at the University of Washington who was not involved in the research.
Dr. Orr, who has described more than 20 snailfishes, called the new discovery “very impressive.” Snailfishes were always assumed to be slimy and uninteresting, he said, but “the video shows how really wonderful they are.”
The footage was taken during an expedition in 2019, when a human-occupied vehicle, Alvin, and a remotely operated one, Doc Ricketts, collected the three snailfishes from the outer reaches of Monterey Canyon, roughly 60 miles offshore of Central California. All were found at depths greater than 10,000 feet.
The researchers compared the fishes’ physical characteristics and genetics to those of other known fishes. The results indicated that each of the three was a new species.
The bumpy snailfish measured about the width of a human hand. It was an adult female, with a round head, large eyes and a distinctive pink coloration.
Johanna Weston, a deep ocean ecologist at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution who was not involved in the research, considers snailfish to be “gregarious animals.”
“They come in beautiful colors,” she said, a palette that includes blue, pink, white and purple. “They also have a lovely little smile on their face,” she said. Snailfish are the counterpoint to anglerfish, a grim-looking predator and common poster child of deep-sea life.
“Our planet is a deep-ocean planet,” Dr. Weston said, and most of Earth’s animals live there. “So it’s really important for us to understand who they are and where they live and see them for their own beauty.”
The deep might seem like a “dark and scary” place in which to thrive, she added. “For the most part, they are living really happy down there.”
Alexa Robles-Gil is a science reporter and a member of the 2025-26 Times Fellowship class, a program for journalists early in their careers.
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