New fish species discovered
Lake Stor is the biggest and deepest lake in the world, the lake alone can cover all the land with over five meters of water. Not only is this body of water the most immense lake of the UBN-participating countries, it is also the wealthiest when it comes to animal wildlife in the deep.
Converging evolution
​
The lake was part of The Northern Noble Ocean centuries ago, but has now evolved into the biggest lake there is. During the evolution of the world as we know it, tectonic plates have converged to enclose a big part of the ocean, creating Lake Stor as it is known today. This is the reason why the lake reaches a depth of 6840 meters and why it is so rich with aquatic animals.
​
​
The Poseidon Trench
During an expedition last month, led by the Flynderhala University, PhD students and professors have teamed up to explore the deepest, darkest part of Lake Stor. With help of the IT-department of the University, an abundant amount of new information could be found in The Poseidon Trench.
The team deployed their baited camera system down the trench to inspect the wildlife, because of the depth, the descent of the cameras took five hours, to reach the lowest point of the seafloor. The team acquired 150 hours of footage and more than 12.000 photos.
King of the underworld
The footage showed a new subspecies of the snailfish family, they haven’t been named officially, but they do belong to the Liparidae family and are known to adapt to living in the deep. The family consists of hundreds of subspecies, some of them living higher up the stream, others dominating the underworld.
The newly discovered snailfish are thought to be the top predators in de deepest parts of the trench. The pressure is can be as high as 2 000 elephants crushing a human, the animals seem to survive quite well and enjoy living their lives in the deep. The skulls of snailfish have holes to adapt to the pressure, and the skeletons are flexible, partially made of cartilage.
No sucker
As seen in this species in less deep waters, this subspecies is not equipped with a sucker. Suckers are mainly used in more shallow waters with an undertow, that way the snailfish can hook itself onto the bottom to stay put in the same place. The unnamed fish just kept their pelvic fins as they are, not needing to use a sucker to hitchhike on crabs to guide them to the next source of fresh food.
​
​
New name
Marine scientists Dr Kristoff Nilsen and Dr Kjersti Helsong have been working on this project together for a decade and don’t want to share their five minutes of name fame on this new species. The name will temporarily remain Djävulens Kung Snailfish, meaning the devilish king snailfish in their native language Kylmästian. The scientists and the University’s marina team will be working on researching the new species along with the IT team and their development of new deep sea camera systems.
The next exploration has been planned for February 2021 where they will try to capture more footage of aquatic wildlife in the trench.
​