7,000 Newly Discovered Species Found in the World’s Deepest Ocean Trench

Scientists just found something wild in the deepest part of the ocean. I’m talking about the Mariana Trench, a place so far down it’s hard to even picture. A Chinese team took a submersible called Fendouzhe and dove in back in 2021. They came back with news that’s turning heads.

What they discovered was life—tons of it—where we didn’t expect much to survive. The trench goes down nearly 11,000 meters, and the pressure there could crush most things flat. But instead of a dead zone, they found over 7,000 new species of microbes. Most of these tiny critters—about 89%—are brand new to us. They’re not like anything up here on the surface.

The team didn’t stop at microbes. They grabbed samples of fish and little shrimp-like amphipods too. One fish, the hadal snailfish, lives deeper than any other fish we know. It’s got tricks in its genes to handle the insane stress down there. The amphipods? They’ve got bacteria in their guts that might help them thrive under all that weight.

How do these creatures make it? Some microbes keep things simple with small genomes, built to work with almost no food or light. Others go the opposite way—big, flexible genomes that let them adapt to whatever the trench throws at them. One study in Cell says some can even break down weird stuff like carbon monoxide to stay alive.

The submersible itself is a beast. Fendouzhe can carry three people and still handle depths most machines can’t touch. It’s got robotic arms and a basket to haul up whatever they find.

Here’s the creepy part—trash. They spotted plastic bags, soda cans, even a laundry basket down there. Weishu Zhao, one of the researchers, said it hit them hard. But there’s a twist. Some of those deep-sea microbes might be eating that junk, which could mean new ways to clean up our mess.

This all came from a project called MEER, short for Mariana Trench Environment and Ecology Research. They took over 1,600 samples during 33 dives. Three papers in Cell break it all down—genetics, survival tricks, and how life got there. Eels might’ve ducked into the deep 100 million years ago, maybe hiding from whatever wiped out the dinosaurs.

I think it’s nuts how much is going on down there. We used to figure the hadal zone—that’s anything below 6,000 meters—was mostly empty. Now we know it’s buzzing with weird life, and it’s been adapting for millions of years. Makes you wonder what else we’re missing.