Three new snailfish species were discovered miles beneath the Pacific, each built differently for life in the abyss.
More than three kilometers beneath the Pacific, in the crushing darkness of Monterey Canyon, a small pink fish drifted just above the seafloor — unhurried, unfamiliar, unlike anything MBARI researchers had logged before.
It was 2019. A remotely operated vehicle was scanning the abyss roughly 100 kilometers off the California coast when the creature appeared: soft-bodied, bumpy-skinned, faintly luminous against the black. Scientists collected it. Then the questions began — and the answers turned out to involve far more than one odd fish.
A chance encounter in the abyss
The pink fish that started everything was barely the length of a finger. MBARI’s remotely operated vehicle Doc Ricketts captured it on camera at 3,268 meters depth inside Monterey Canyon — roughly 100 kilometers off Central California — during an expedition aboard the research vessel Western Flyer, run by MBARI’s Biodiversity and Biooptics Team.
Researchers collected the animal: an adult female, just 9.2 centimeters long, whose features didn’t match any deep-sea snailfish previously logged off California. That mismatch was enough to flag it for closer attention.
MBARI Senior Scientist Steven Haddock, who led the expedition, reached out to Mackenzie Gerringer — an associate professor at SUNY Geneseo specializing in deep-sea fish physiology and ecology. That call set a broader investigation in motion. The pink fish wasn’t alone in the mystery pile for long. Later that same year, a separate expedition using the submersible Alvin at MBARI’s Station M site — roughly 4,000 meters down — collected two more unusual specimens, neither of which resembled anything previously described.
Three new species, confirmed by science
Gerringer led a team that included researchers from the University of Montana and the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa — among them former MBARI postdoctoral fellow Jeff Drazen — to examine all three fish systematically. Their findings were published in the journal Ichthyology and Herpetology.
The study formally names three new species. The pink fish became the bumpy snailfish (Careproctus colliculi), distinguished by its round head, large eyes, wide pectoral fins with long upper rays, and bumpy skin. The second is the dark snailfish (Careproctus yanceyi): fully black, with a rounded head and a horizontal mouth. The third, the sleek snailfish (Paraliparis em), has a long, laterally compressed black body and — notably — no suction disk.
Identifications were confirmed through microscopy, micro-CT scanning, morphological measurements, and DNA sequencing. CT scan data is publicly available through MorphoSource; genetic sequences are accessible via GenBank.
Built for the extreme: how snailfish survive the deep
Snailfish belong to the family Liparidae, and their body plan reflects the environment they’ve adapted to. A large head, jelly-like body, and loose skin help them withstand pressures that would crush most organisms. Their narrow tails and soft structure give them a ghostly, unhurried look on camera — almost meditative, if a fish can be called that.
Many species carry a suction disk on their belly, useful for gripping the seafloor or hitching rides on deep-sea crabs. The sleek snailfish lacks this disk entirely, which sets it apart from most relatives and raises genuine questions about how it navigates and feeds at depth.
Snailfish are surprisingly diverse — over 400 species have been described worldwide, found in habitats ranging from shallow tide pools to the deepest ocean trenches. One species holds the record for the deepest-dwelling fish ever observed. Gerringer’s research focuses specifically on how these animals manage life under frigid cold, perpetual darkness, and crushing pressure.
Why cataloging the deep sea has never been more urgent
The deep ocean is the largest living space on Earth and also among the least explored. Climate change is altering ocean conditions at depth, and deep-sea mining operations are pushing into ecosystems that aren’t yet fully documented. Describing species before they’re disturbed — or lost — is becoming genuinely time-sensitive.
MBARI has been working at this for nearly four decades. Over 38 years, the institute and its collaborators have discovered more than 300 new species by sharing video footage and specimens with taxonomy experts worldwide. The 30-year dataset from Station M alone has helped researchers trace connections between abyssal ecosystems and broader ocean-climate dynamics — a return on investment that only long-term commitment can produce.
What remains unknown — and what comes next
For now, the bumpy snailfish remains something of a ghost. Haddock’s 2019 encounter is the only confirmed observation on record, and its full geographic range and depth distribution are still unknown.
There’s one tentative lead. A review of MBARI’s video archive suggests the species may have been filmed off Oregon in 2009 — mistaken at the time for the bigtail snailfish (Osteodiscus cascadiae), a similar-looking species. That possibility remains unconfirmed.
The name of the sleek snailfish carries a quiet tribute: Paraliparis em honors Station M and the researchers who have sustained its 30-year time series. It’s a reminder that long-term commitment to a single place often yields discoveries that short expeditions simply can’t.
Each new species described adds a data point to a baseline that didn’t exist before. These three snailfish found off California suggest that even well-studied stretches of seafloor still hold animals waiting to be found — and named.
Learn more about the findings in the complete study: Mackenzie E. Gerringer, Sarah Suplicz, Jessica L. Palmeri, Lydia Fregosi, Brett H. Woodworth, Emily McMahon, Samantha Shepard, Logan M. Peoples, Jeffrey C. Drazen. Descriptions of Three Newly Discovered Abyssal Snailfishes (Liparidae) from the Eastern Pacific Ocean. Ichthyology, 2025; 113 (3): 487 DOI: 10.1643/i2024069
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