Scientists exploring a marine trench(海沟) near Japan were surprised to find a type of snailfish in one of the deepest parts of the ocean, at 8, 336 meters below the surface. The creature is probably the deepest fish anyone will ever find.

“They can’t really go any deeper,” says deep-sea scientist Alan Jamieson of the University of West Australia, who led the team that made the discovery, considering the theoretical limit of fish physiology(生理机能) is around 8, 400 meters to ensure that fish cells don’t become too small at such enormous pressures. “If anyone does find fish deeper than this, it will not be by much,” Jamieson says. The previous record holder, a junior snail fish seen in the Mariana Trench, was filmed at a depth of 8, 178 meters in 2017.

Prosanta Chakrabarty, director of fishes at Louisiana State University’s Museum of Natural Science, is impressed that the fish could survive so far down, where the water pressure is 800tes that of the surface. “At that depth, everything from gas exchange for breathing to nearly every physiological function seems impossible,” he says. “I can barely swim to the bottom of a swimming pool without my ears exploding.”

Jamieson’s team discovered the snail fish in August 2022 at the bottom of the Izu-Ogasawara Trench, near the main islands of Japan. To explore deep ocean trenches, the team was using manned and unmanned underwater vehicles equipped with cameras, lights and batteries, along with a weight to carry the equipment to the seafloor, unexpectedly photographing the fish.

The warmer water seems to be why the snail fish survive. These snail fish are living near the edge of what’s possible. “The difference is less than a degree, so we wouldn’t care,” Jamieson says. “But it makes a difference to sea animals.”

In an e-mail to Scientific American, Dahiana Arcila, a scientist who studies fishes noted the part played by technology in the discovery. “Detectors and landers will gain a deeper understanding of the unexplored regions of our planet’s oceans,” she wrote.

Earth’s wildlife populations have decreased by an average of 69% in just under 50 years, according to a leading scientific assessment, as humans continue to clear forests, consume beyond the limits of the planet, and pollute on an industrial scale. Two years ago, the estimated decline since 1970 stood at 68%, and four years ago, it was under 60%.

Many scientists believe we are living through the sixth mass extinction-the largest loss of life on Earth since the time of the dinosaurs-and that it as being driven by humans. The report’s 89 authors urged world leaders to reach an ambitious agreement at the Cop 15 biodiversity summit in Canada this December and to cut carbon emissions to limit global heating to below 1. 5 C this decade to stop to serious destruction of nature.

Latin America and the Caribbean have seen the steepest declines in average wildlife population size, with a 94% drop in 48 years. Africa had the second largest fall at 66%, followed by Asia and the Pacific with 55% and North America at 20%. Europe and Central Asia experienced an 18% fall. The total loss is akin to the human population of Europe, the Americas, Africa, Oceania and China disappearing, according to the report.

Land use change is still the leading driver of biodiversity loss across the planet. Robin Freeman, head of one unit at Zoological Society of London’s, said it was clear humanity is eroding the very foundations of life, and argent action is needed. He mentioned, “It’s not just about conservation, it’s about changing production and consumption-and the only way we are going to be able to make laws or call for that is to have these clear measurable targets that ask for recovery of abundance, reduction of extinction risk and the ending of extinctions at Cop 15 in December.”

Have you ever imagined what it would be like to see the world through an animal's eyes? For example, what a chimpanzee sees as it sits at the top of a tree, or a penguin;s view as it dives into the sea to catch its dinner?

These questions are answered in the nature documentary Animals with Cameras, produced by the BBC. The three-part series was first aired in the UK last month. To explore animal stories "told” by the animals themselves, the documentary's filmmakers worked with scientists to develop cameras that wild animals could wear.

"Never before have we seen such high-quality footage （连续镜头）directly from the animal's point of view, ” BBC Nature executive producer Fred Kaufman told PBS. “ This miniseries greatly expands our comprehension of animal behavior and this camera technology opens up new possibilities for discovering so much more."

Indeed, the groundbreaking technology provides a new viewpoint of the animal kingdom. New cameras with enough battery life to shoot for hours at a time were designed to be comfortable enough for animals to wear, according to the documentary's camera designer Chris Watts.

The technical challenges didn't stop there. Some animals were very curious about the equipment, with some even fighting each other for the chance to wear a camera. In the case of chimpanzees, "we had to create dummy （仿造的）cameras, so that every chimpanzee could get one" , the miniseries'   wildlife cameraman Gordon Buchanan told Live Science.

For animals that were comfortable enough to be with human beings, the cameras could be fitted and removed by hand. But for others, the cameras came off automatically using a timed release and were collected afterward. This meant that the cameras needed to be as tough as possible.

To avoid disturbing the animals, scientists who were good at dealing with wildlife came to help by putting the cameras on the animals. " The last thing we want to do is cause them distress." the documentary's   producer Dan Rees told the BBC. “To follow an animal in the first place, there had to be a clear benefit in terms of knowledge about it that might be useful to protecting a species in the future.

Their efforts certainly paid off. “ Footage that captures （捕 捉）these rare and exciting glimpses of animals bidden habits is important to scientists, but documentaries like Animals with Cameras also resonate with （引 起共鸣）audiences, connecting them with the beauty - and danger - of wildlife in their natural environments," Live Science noted.