And just like spacecraft, telescopes, and rovers, underwater submersibles can transport us to the oceans’ coldest, darkest depths, revealing the creatures that live there. <\/p>\n
Traditional taxonomic studies often observed sea animals that were captured, killed, or washed ashore<\/a>, but modern submersibles let us see them as they actually are, in their aquatic abodes, without destroying them.\u00a0<\/p>\n This can deliver some revelatory observations.<\/p>\n Researchers in China have just filmed a weird shrimp-like fish scuttling sideways<\/a> along the seafloor like a crab and even ‘moonwalking’ backward \u2013 a movement that has never been observed in any other fish.<\/p>\n This dynamic behavior is enabled by a dizzying array of features that the researchers got a better look at in action. <\/p>\n Scalicus engyceros<\/a>, a species of armored searobin<\/a> found in the western Pacific Ocean, was first described in 1872 and was already known for its ‘walk’<\/a>. <\/p>\n The new footage, from the South China Sea, confirms that these fish use their thick, stiffened fin rays<\/a> to scuttle around like shrimp and even jump in a jerky leap when threatened. <\/p>\n “These walking fish harbor far more novel behavioral and evolutionary adaptations than previously assumed,” says<\/a> Han Tian, a marine scientist at Sun Yat-sen University and the study’s first author.\u00a0<\/p>\n In the journal Ocean-Land-Atmosphere Research<\/a>, the researchers also report observations of two other species of armored searobins (family Peristediidae<\/a>) that were sighted between 350 and 500 meters (1,148 and 1,640 feet) using the human-occupied vehicle Shenhaiyongshi<\/a> (meaning deep-sea warrior) and the remotely operated vehicle Haiqin.\u00a0<\/p>\n “By observing deep-sea animals alive in their surrounding environment, we can gain insight into the adaptation and evolution of the species,” Tian says<\/a>.<\/p>\n Based on existing taxonomy, the three peristediid fishes share a common ancestor that lived around 60 to 70 million years ago, developing interesting adaptations to handle their extreme environment. <\/p>\n Several hundred meters below the surface, where the searobins were spotted, some 40 atmospheres’ worth of water pressure sits upon one’s shoulders \u2013 yes, fish have shoulders, sort of<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n Armored searobins are covered in bony plates, hence the “armored” appellation. <\/p>\n They also have branched barbels on their snouts that look like a garden rake and act like whiskers<\/a>, allowing them to physically and chemically<\/a> sense food<\/a> or obstacles as they stroll along the seafloor.<\/p>\n As the researchers observed<\/a>, S. engyceros sweeps these rake-like appendages across the seabed as it walks, “occasionally touching sediment bumps or rocks”. <\/p>\n Although this may help with ‘sniffing’ out food and navigating obstacles, it “seems awkward because it appears inconvenient for walking”, the researchers note<\/a>.<\/p>\n To help with that, armored searobins have two pectoral fins that fan out sideways, apparently for balance.<\/p>\n Like other deep-sea creatures<\/a>, S. engyceros also sports some big peepers \u2013 but they may not be so useful. After so long in darkness, their eyesight might be on the way out.<\/p>\n When the researchers approached S. engyceros in their submersibles, the fish didn’t seem to hear or see them coming.<\/p>\n Though one of its eyes did look up at the vehicle’s light beam before the animal swam away, possibly to avoid small talk.\u00a0<\/p>\n “This raises the question of whether this species has not resided in this dark habitat long enough for complete degradation of light sensing,” the researchers ponder in their paper<\/a>, “or whether it may still move upward at times, perhaps into the twilight zone.”<\/p>\n As for the other armored searobins observed, the researchers sighted six Peristedion liorhynchus individuals in an underwater canyon, a different habitat to the seamount where S. engyceros was spotted.<\/p>\n S. engyceros ‘ dynamic ambulational abilities certainly set it apart from the dozen or so other fish<\/a> that have evolved skeletal adaptations for walking on land, including the adorable amphibious mudskipper<\/a> and the otherworldly, eyeless cave angel fish<\/a>.<\/p>\n The backward-shuffling, side-stepping S. engyceros may be in a league of its own, but then who knows what else is traversing the seafloor in places humans have never come close to sighting. <\/p>\n Fortunately, the future promises many more spectacular deep-sea discoveries, made possible by increasingly versatile submersible technologies.\u00a0<\/p>\n So, whether it’s the goosebump-cresting creepiness of underwater ‘backrooms’<\/a> or golden orbs<\/a> left by tentacled, virgin-birthing ‘spaghetti monsters’, the oceanographic Bingo card stretches endlessly.\u00a0<\/p>\n Related: There Are Fungi in The Ocean, And They May Be Way More Important Than We Realized<\/a><\/p>\n “Ultimately, this research will reshape scientific perceptions of deep-sea biodiversity and reveal how extreme marine environments drive the emergence of one-of-a-kind biological structures and behaviors unseen in any other aquatic organism on Earth,” Tian concludes<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n This research was published in Ocean-Land-Atmosphere Research<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n This article was fact-checked by Clare Watson<\/a> and edited by Clare Watson<\/a>. While we pride ourselves on our process, we are only human. If you spot a mistake, please let us know<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The expansive, abyssal darkness of the deep sea mirrors the mystique and grandeur of outer space.\u00a0 Hauntingly bioluminescent…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":610128,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[61,60,2209,82],"class_list":["post-610127","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-science","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-msft-content","tag-science"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/610127","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=610127"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/610127\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/610128"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=610127"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=610127"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=610127"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"YouTube](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/1788176890_489_0.jpg\")
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The blind cave angel fish (Cryptotora thamicola) ‘walks’ in a swaying motion, similar to salamanders. It might not look that effective, but these fish can climb waterfalls. (Zachary Randall\/Florida Museum)<\/a><\/p>\n