{"id":557334,"date":"2026-07-24T12:11:10","date_gmt":"2026-07-24T12:11:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/557334\/"},"modified":"2026-07-24T12:11:10","modified_gmt":"2026-07-24T12:11:10","slug":"researchers-explore-one-of-africas-deepest-lakes-and-found-an-unexpected-creature-lurking-in-its-depths","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/557334\/","title":{"rendered":"Researchers explore one of Africa\u2019s deepest lakes \u2013 and found an unexpected creature lurking in its depths"},"content":{"rendered":"

Insects can be found in almost every environment on Earth. They live on every continent<\/a>, at high elevations, in the freezing cold and at extremely hot temperatures.<\/p>\n

Aquatic insects account for more than 60% of freshwater animal species, but none are known to inhabit the deep open ocean. It\u2019s widely thought that their tracheal breathing systems would collapse under such pressure.<\/p>\n

However, a study published in Science<\/a> has found they can survive in one of Africa\u2019s deepest lakes, at an astonishing depth of more than 200 metres.<\/p>\n

Lake Malawi is the second deepest lake in Africa, with an average depth of 292 metres \u2013 although it has a maximum depth of 706 metres. The aquatic larvae of the lake fly Chaoborus edulis are an important part of the lake\u2019s ecology, acting as a food source for fish and feeding on zooplankton.<\/p>\n

A team of researchers used sonar to track the larvae as they moved through the water column in the freshwater lake to avoid predatory fish.<\/p>\n

\"\"Swarms of Chaoborus edulis can often be seen over Lake Malawi. Credit: Joachim Huber, CC BY-SA 2.0 https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by-sa\/2.0, via Wikimedia Commons<\/p>\n

They then compared Chaoborus species from shallower lakes, such as Lake Victoria, which has an average depth of 40 metres.<\/p>\n

Lake Malawi is known for its cichilds. It\u2019s thought that it could be home to around 700 species. Credit: WLV Stock\/Getty Images<\/p>\n

The scientists discovered that Chaoborus edulis frequently descended more than 200 metres to the lake\u2019s oxygen-free bottom layer during the day to avoid being predated on by fish. They then returned to the lake\u2019s surface waters to feed at night.<\/p>\n

Unexpectedly, they found that this was due to a modified tracheal system. The larvae have reinforced buoyancy-regulating air-filled sacs that actively adjust depth in shallower waters, then become rigid at greater depths to resist crushing pressure.<\/p>\n

When exposed to hydrostatic pressure in a laboratory environment, the air sacs of the largest larvae resisted collapse at depths equivalent to around 500 metres.<\/p>\n

The findings suggest that insects could eventually colonise pelagic marine environments after all.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Insects can be found in almost every environment on Earth. They live on every continent, at high elevations,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":557335,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[85,46,141,386],"class_list":["post-557334","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-wildlife","tag-il","tag-israel","tag-science","tag-wildlife"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/557334","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=557334"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/557334\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/557335"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=557334"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=557334"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=557334"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}