China discovers thousands of new creatures in the dark region

A team of scientists from multiple research institutes across China claims to have identified 7,564 species of tiny creatures in the ocean's "hadal zone," nearly 90 percent of which are completely new to the world.

The hadal zone, named after the Greek god Hades, ruler of the underworld, is a body of water 6-11 km deep, where total darkness reigns.

The dark side of the ocean is where Chinese scientists have found many strange creatures - Illustration AI: Thu Anh

According to Science Alert, Chinese researchers made 33 dives into the hadal zone using manned submarines, collecting sediment and seawater samples.

Life is not easy in the hadal zone. Temperatures are near freezing, water pressure is high, and there are very few nutrients.

So they were completely shocked when they came across the huge amount of microorganisms mentioned above.

Most of them are bacteria, surviving using two special strategies that we rarely see in the terrestrial world.

Some have simpler, more compact genomes than terrestrial microbes, evolving to survive more efficiently. These bacteria show evidence of enzymes designed to withstand the stresses of living at such depths.

Some other microorganisms still have large genomes like land bacteria, but they are not built for efficiency but for flexibility.

This makes them better able to adapt to environmental stresses and able to sustain life in more ways.

"Unusually high levels of novelty, diversity and heterogeneity were observed in the hadal microbiome, particularly in prokaryotes and viruses," the authors wrote in the scientific journal Cell.

Microbes also tend to find niches in the ocean depths and stick around. Each sampling site the researchers visited had its own unique set of organisms, with little overlap with other locations.

In the deepest parts of the Mariana Trench in the Pacific Ocean, they rely on each other to survive.

These deepest organisms share nutrients and exhibit behaviors that benefit the entire community, such as together forming a protective biofilm for the entire community.

Lesley Montoya

Update 13 March 2025