Meet Earth's Newest Cutie-Pie: The Bumpy Snailfish

EARTH, Laniakea Supercluster—The Pacific Ocean just dropped a new contender for Earth’s cutest creature—the bumpy snailfish—a recently discovered seemingly smiling critter that looks more plush toy than deep-sea forager.

Picture, sort of, the improbable offspring of an axolotl and the iconic Nintendo character Kirby, only this pink, pudgy bottom feeder with big eyes and floppy fins lurks nearly two miles deep near the frigid sea floor in perpetual darkness.

The high-definition footage of this blue-eyed cutie-pie was released on September 8 by the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute (MBARI), in collaboration with researchers from SUNY Geneseo, the University of Montana, and the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa. It came in an announcement naming the creature Careproctus colliculi (bumpy snailfish), as one of three new species of deep-sea snailfishes described in a paper published in the peer-reviewed journal Ichthyology & Herpetology.

Although the fish was first recorded by researchers off the coast of Central California in Monterey Canyon in 2019, it remained unidentified for several years while scientists compared specimens, genetic data, and video archives.

Using MBARI’s remotely operated vehicle Doc Ricketts, scientists filmed a pale pink fish at 3,268 meters (10,722 feet) underwater, finding it to be approximately 9.2 centimeters long, with large eyes, wide pectoral fins, and a uniquely bumpy texture—a morphology unlike other known snailfish in the region. The bumps almost look like adorable blue freckles; a perfect imperfection.

Move over, Moo Deng. Float aside, dumbo octopus. The bumpy snailfish is here, and it’s magnificent.

“The deep sea is home to an incredible diversity of organisms and a truly beautiful array of adaptations. Our discovery of not one, but three, new species of snailfishes is a reminder of how much we have yet to learn about life on Earth and of the power of curiosity and exploration,” said Mackenzie Gerringer, an associate professor at SUNY Geneseo and a lead author on the paper, in the press release.

The other two species described in the recent announcement are the dark snailfish (Careproctus yanceyi), which is entirely black with a horizontal mouth, and the sleek snailfish (Paraliparis em), distinguished by its elongated, laterally compressed body, absence of a ventral suction disk, and angled jaw.

Steven Haddock, a senior scientist at MBARI and the leader of the expedition, emphasized the importance of such discoveries because “documenting deep-sea biodiversity is critical to detecting any changes that may be occurring in this environment.”

The discovery adds to a growing body of knowledge that the abyssal plains and deep canyon systems are far from uniform or barren. Snailfishes are remarkable in that they thrive across an extreme range of ocean depths—from shallow tide pools and near-shore crevices to the cold, dark, high-pressure zones of the abyss. More than 400 species are now known, but new examinations of morphology, genetics, and high-definition video continue to reveal unexpected variety.

The conditions in which the bumpy snailfish was found are harsh even by deep-sea standards. Temperatures hover close to freezing, pressure is thousands of times greater than at sea level, and no sunlight penetrates. Yet the fish exhibits physical traits—eyes large relative to body size, fleshy fins with long supporting rays, and a surface texture studded with tubercles—that suggest adaptation to a life hovering just above the seafloor, possibly optimized for minimal energy expenditure and perhaps scavenging or hunting small prey in near darkness.

Such discoveries are not only scientifically interesting but also carry urgency. Deep-sea environments face increasing pressure from mining, climate warming, and acidification. According to MBARI, understanding what species live in these zones is essential for informed conservation policy. Haddock and Gerringer both noted that without baseline data from deep habitats, it is difficult to assess how much change is occurring, whether species are being lost, or ecosystems disturbed.

The fact that these species were discovered in well-studied regions underscores how much remains hidden even in places researchers have visited before. As Gerringer said in the Smithsonian Magazine, two of the new species were collected “on the same dive … at one of the better-studied parts of the deep sea in the world,” yet still turned out to be unknown to science.