SCIENCE LAB SCURRY : ' ADORABLE SNAILFISH '

DEEP in the abyss, a creature far from monstrous : For an animal surviving in the ocean's deepest trenches requires remarkable adaptations.

A gelatinous body that can withstand pressure, bioluminescent features to guide it and a transparent coloration for camouflage in the darkness.

The combination often gives deep-sea creatures an alien-like look.

But the ocean's newest deep-sea fish, the bumpy snailfish, proves that not all is strange and scary in the unknown abyss.

'' It's pretty adorable,'' said Mackenzie Gerringer, a marine biologist at the State University of New York at Geneseo, and a counter to the perception that deep-sea creatures are '' monsters.''

The bumpy snailfish was among three new snailfish species discovered off the coast of California, at a depth of over 10,000 feet [ 3,000 meters ], by an expedition led by the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute, Dr. Gerringer and her team examined the samples and reported their discovery in a study in the Journal Ichthyology & Herpetology.

The deep sea is the largest habitat on the planet, spanning more than 80% of the ocean seafloor, and is intimately connected to the rest of the ocean.

Snailfish are small saltwater fish that live everywhere from tide pools to the deep sea; the Mariana snailfish holds the record for deepest fish species, thriving 27,000 feet down in the Mariana Trench.

The snailfish family includes roughly 450 described species, many of them discovered in just the past two decades. They are distinguished by their scaleless bodies and a disc on the belly that helps shallow-water snailfish stick to rocks or larger fish.

They're also charismatic. Dr. Gerringer found it '' beautiful and interesting '' that a creature so delicate in appearance could live in such a harsh environment, she said, showcasing the '' really exciting adaptations '' of some of these snailfish.

The World Students Society thanks Alexa Robles-Gil.