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A simple search for "fish" led us to the Fish category in the Yahoo! directory. We scanned the list of fish sites and found a Fish FAQ at the bottom of the page. After reaching the site, we noticed that the first question was exactly what we wanted: Is life found at all depths in the ocean? The link led us to this explanation: "The question was settled in 1960, when Piccard and Walsh reported a swimming animal, resembling a sole or other flatfish about a foot long, at 35,800 feet deep, observed from a porthole of the Bathyscapne Trieste. Some scientists believed, as
recently as 1860, that marine life could not exist below 1,800 feet. That view was altered when a telegraph cable laid in the ocean bottom at 6,000 feet deep was retrieved and found covered with many forms of marine life." We noted that this site was created by the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, so we were fairly confident about its accuracy, but, as always, we wanted to double-check. A Yahoo! search on "deepest living fish" returned a page about the deep-dwelling cuskeel from the Australian Museum Online. We learned that the family Ophidiidae contains about 165 species, including the deepest living fish known,
Abyssobrotula galatheae. This fish has been recorded at 8370 meters in the Puerto Rico Trench. So, our research concludes that fish live at great depths -- almost seven miles down -- but scientists have never caught or studied these specimens. The deepest living fish identified and documented by science lives at about 27,460 feet.
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