What Lies Beneath: Scientists Get First Peek at Rare Deep-Sea Life

A crushing dive into the ocean's darkest realms has revealed surprising differences among the marine life that populates the Pacific Ocean's deepest depths.

Via remotely-operated camera, the research team found an unusual community of fish and prawns living at depths down to 23,000 feet (7,000 m). The New Hebrides creatures were surprisingly different from those discovered by earlier expeditions in other Pacific trenches, the researchers said.

"What we found was an entirely different deep-water fish community," expedition leader Alan Jamieson, a marine biologist at the University of Aberdeen, said in a statement. "Fish were surprisingly few in number and low in diversity and not at all what we expected."

The ocean's most abundant deep-sea fish, the grenadier, never appeared during the expedition's 27 dives (all between depths of 6,500 to 23,000 feet, or 2,000 to 7,000 m). Instead, cusk eels, a type of fish, and bright red prawns were the most common marine life in the New Hebrides trench. Both creatures are rarely found in other trenches, the researchers said. Video captured during the dives shows the 3-foot long (1 m) cusk eels and prawns chomping on bait. [Gallery: Creatures from the New Hebrides Trench]