Deep-Sea Fishes – Gerringer Lab

January 3, 2018October 1, 2019

A bucket-list fish…

Cusk eel, an aphyonine. — The ghostly cusk eel, an aphyonine fish seen by NOAA OER.

The remotely-operated vehicle, Deep Discoverer, explores the deep sea live, while anyone with an internet connection can tune in. The sense of excitement and discovery is palpable. As we watch NOAA’s Okeanos Explorer live feed, we sometimes discuss: what would be the top things you would want to see. This fish made the top of our lists and last year, we saw it! It’s an aphyonine cusk eel, in the family Ophidiidae, and this is the first time one has been seen alive!

January 3, 2018October 1, 2019

Gelatinous Tissues and Robot Snailfish

Some deep-sea fish are full of a gelatinous goo—a watery tissue layer. These tissues show up in several different types of fishes, but why are they there? Our new open-access paper in Royal Society Open Science tackles this question. We describe which fishes have gelatinous tissue, show the chemistry of what gelatinous tissues are made of, and test some of the functions. Gelatinous tissues likely help deep-sea fishes maintain buoyancy. They may also act as faring, changing the shape of the fish to reduce drag. And, of course, we needed to build a robot hadal snailfish! Check out the full paper and coverage by Science News!

May 31, 2017October 1, 2019

Life Under Pressure

Pressure gauge — Recreating deep-sea pressures in the lab.

We measured metabolic enzyme activities of abyssal and hadal fishes under high pressure and found some interesting adaptations. Check out our new paper in Deep-Sea Research for the full story!