Deepest living fishes caught on camera for the first time

Scientists filming in one of the world's deepest ocean trenches have found groups of highly sociable snailfish swarming over their bait, nearly five miles (7700 metres) beneath the surface of the Pacific Ocean. This is the first time cameras have been sent to this depth.

"We got some absolutely amazing footage from 7700 metres. More fish than we or anyone in the world would ever have thought possible at these depths," says project leader Dr Alan Jamieson of the University of Aberdeen's Oceanlab, on board the Japanese research ship the Hakuho-Maru.

"It's incredible. These videos vastly exceed all our expectations from this research. We thought the deepest fishes would be motionless, solitary, fragile individuals eking out an existence in a food-sparse environment," says Professor Monty Priede, director of Oceanlab.

"But these fish aren't loners. The images show groups that are sociable and active