{"id":938036,"date":"2026-05-04T22:49:17","date_gmt":"2026-05-04T22:49:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/938036\/"},"modified":"2026-05-04T22:49:17","modified_gmt":"2026-05-04T22:49:17","slug":"deep-sea-cameras-off-japan-film-mysterious-floating-creature-scientists-cant-identify","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/938036\/","title":{"rendered":"Deep-Sea Cameras Off Japan Film Mysterious Floating Creature Scientists Can\u2019t Identify"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"AThis ghostly organism was found at the bottom of the Ryukyu Trench and scientists are baffled by what this creature could be. | Photo credit: Jamieson et al., 2026, Minderoo-UWA Deep-Sea Research Centre, Inkfish and Caladan Oceanic <\/p>\n

Scientists dropped cameras about 29,900 feet deep off the coast of Japan and discovered a deep-sea creature so strange that they could not identify it.<\/p>\n

A team led by the Minderoo-UWA Deep-Sea Research Centre at the University of Western Australia discovered the mysterious slow-gliding marine creature during a two-month expedition<\/a> on the research vessel DSSV Pressure Drop. The team used high-definition cameras on the crewed submersible Limiting Factor to explore three of Japan\u2019s deepest underwater trenches: the Japan Trench, the Izu-Ogasawara Trench, and the Ryukyu Trench. <\/p>\n

The researchers identified 108 distinct organism groups during the mission. However, they were unable to classify one ghostly white organism seen at the bottom of a deep-sea trench. The unidentified marine animal was observed floating near the seafloor in the Ryukyu Trench in the Philippine Sea, along the eastern edge of Japan\u2019s Ryukyu Islands, at depths of up to 29,977 feet, where pressure is nearly 1,000 times greater than at sea level.<\/p>\n

According to a report by BBC Wildlife Magazine,<\/a> the creature is currently being classified as \u201cAnimalia incerta sedis\u201d as scientists still don\u2019t know what it is. Despite consultations with taxonomic experts worldwide, the organism cannot be confidently assigned to any known phylum. While it shares some visual similarities with nudibranchs or sea cucumbers, its identity remains unclear.<\/p>\n

\u201cInitially, the authors speculated that this organism might be a nudibranch,\u201d the researchers write in a recent study published in the Biodiversity Data Journal.<\/a> <\/p>\n

\"AThe submersible \u2018Limiting factor\u2019 before the expedition launch | Photo credit: Minderoo-UWA Deep-Sea Research Centre, Inkfish and Caladan Oceanic \"ABassozetus sp. filmed by the team at 21,653 feet depth | Photo credit: Jamieson et al., 2026, Minderoo-UWA Deep-Sea Research Centre, Inkfish and Caladan Oceanic <\/p>\n

Like sea slugs, its body appeared to be divided into two symmetrical halves and featured antennae-like projections resembling a nudibranch\u2019s rhinophores. Its pale appearance also reminded the team of the alabaster nudibranch (Dirona albolineata). But other experts were not convinced.<\/p>\n

\u201cSome noted that the appendages appeared too rigid to belong to a nudibranch,\u201d write the study authors, \u201cwhile others speculated that they appeared to be of \u2018molluscan morphology\u2019, but could not speculate beyond that.\u201d<\/p>\n

At around 29,960 feet, the sighting was more than twice as deep as the deepest known nudibranch, previously recorded at about 13,100 feet. That earlier deep-sea organism also puzzled scientists at the time and was informally dubbed the \u201cmystery mollusc,\u201d reports BBC Wildlife Magazine. <\/p>\n

In addition to the unidentified creature, the research team filmed a wide range of marine life during the expedition, including carnivorous sponges, a \u201csupergiant\u201d scavenging amphipod, and a snailfish feeding at a record depth of 27,350 feet.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"This ghostly organism was found at the bottom of the Ryukyu Trench and scientists are baffled by what…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":938037,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3847],"tags":[232253,2122,108823,70,95328,16,48576,15,1717],"class_list":{"0":"post-938036","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-wildlife","8":"tag-deepsea","9":"tag-japan","10":"tag-mysterious","11":"tag-science","12":"tag-species","13":"tag-uk","14":"tag-underwatercamera","15":"tag-united-kingdom","16":"tag-wildlife"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/116518752683190094","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/938036","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=938036"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/938036\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/938037"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=938036"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=938036"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=938036"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}