Deep sea
The cold, dark ocean below about 1,000 metres, down to the trenches, where fish live under huge pressure.
Also: bathypelagic, abyssal, hadal zone
The deep sea is the largest habitat on Earth. Below about 1,000 metres no sunlight reaches, the water is near freezing, and the pressure rises by one atmosphere for every 10 metres. Food is scarce, so many fish have huge mouths, stretchy stomachs and lures, such as the anglerfish and gulper eel. Others, such as grenadiers and cusk-eels, cruise the abyssal plains at 3,000 to 6,000 metres. The deepest fish known is a snailfish filmed at 8,336 metres in the Izu-Ogasawara Trench off Japan in 2022.