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Mahesh

17/10/22 09:37 AM IST

Paraliparis selti – new species of deep sea fish

In News 
  • Scientists have recently discovered a new species of deep sea fish in the Atacama Trench.
Major Findings 
  • In 2018, an international team of researchers surveyed the Atacama Trench by deployed free-falling landers to study deep sea creatures.
  • They recorded three types of hadal snailfish, one of which is never known to science.
  • The new species, christened Paraliparis selti, was discovered some 6,000 to 7,000 meters deep.
  • With its large eyes and unique colour, it resembled snailfish living in shallower waters.
  • Scientists used a 3D x-ray technique called microcomputed tomography (micro-CT) and DNA barcoding to identify the species and found that the new species is a separate colonizer of the Atacama Trench.
  • It belongs to genus Paraliparis. Species of this genus is mainly found in Southern Ocean of the Antarctic and rarely found deeper than 2,000 meters.
  • This is the first time that the Paraliparis genus was recorded in the hadal zone.
  • The name Paraliparis selti means blue in the Kunza language of the indigenous people living in Atacama Desert.
About Atacama Trench
  • The Atacama Trench or the Peru-Chile Trench is an oceanic trench in the eastern Pacific Ocean situated some 160 km off the coast of Peru and Chile.
  • It reaches a maximum depth of 8,065 and is around 5,900 km long. It delineates the boundary between the subducting Nazca Plate and the overriding South American Plate.
Source- The Hindu 

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