Scientists discover three ghostly new sea creatures, 6.4km deep in the Pacific Ocean

In their latest trip to the Atacama Trench, one of the deepest points in the Pacific Ocean, a team of scientists repeatedly lowered a device called a deep-sea lander overboard and watched as it sank into the cold, dark waters.

The lander – essentially a hi-tech trap outfitted with bait, monitors and underwater cameras – would take four hours to fall all the way to the bottom of the Atacama Trench, off the coast of Peru and Chile. But once there, it began recording footage of life that has rarely been documented.

What researchers captured on camera were three new species of the “elusive” snailfish, living more than 6,400 metres beneath the surface, according to Newcastle University, which announced the findings Monday.

On video, the newly discovered snailfish appeared to be long and gelatinous, with translucent skin and an ethereal movement, as they fed on bait lowered with the trap. The fish also seemed far larger than other organisms captured on camera near the bait.

The new species have temporarily been named the pink, blue and purple Atacama snailfish, part of the Liparidae family, scientists said. And they’re doing all right for themselves.

“As the footage clearly shows, there are lots of invertebrate prey down there, and the snailfish are the top predator,” said Thomas Linley, a postdoctoral research associate at Newcastle University and one of the lead researchers on the expedition. “They seem to be quite active and look very well-fed.”

The fish have no scales, and the hardest parts of their bodies are their teeth and the bones in their inner ear, which give them balance, he added. These features help them live in the deepest reaches of the ocean.