What Is Dulcibella camanchaca, the Deep Sea Predator Found in the Atacama Trench?

The Short Answer

Dulcibella camanchaca is a newly discovered species of amphipod crustacean found nearly 8,000 metres deep in the Atacama Trench — and unlike every other deep-sea amphipod known to science, it is an active predator, not a scavenger.

What Is the Atacama Trench?

The Atacama Trench, also called the Peru–Chile Trench, runs along the western coast of South America and plunges to depths exceeding 8,000 metres, making it one of the deepest oceanic trenches in the Southern Hemisphere. Known as the hadal zone, this extreme environment sits under pressure roughly 800 times greater than what humans experience at sea level, and water temperatures hover just above freezing. For decades, scientists believed that complex animal life at these depths could only survive by scavenging organic material that drifted down from the ocean above — a food strategy known as carrion feeding.

How Was Dulcibella camanchaca Discovered?

During a joint scientific expedition between China and Chile, researchers deployed the crewed submersible Fendouzhe — one of the most capable deep-diving vessels in the world — into the Atacama Trench. The Fendouzhe is capable of reaching depths beyond 10,000 metres, and its crewed dives allow scientists to directly observe, collect, and document organisms in their natural habitat rather than relying solely on traps or remote vehicles. The expedition recovered specimens of a crustacean that had never been described before, which researchers subsequently named Dulcibella camanchaca.

What Does the Name Mean?

The species name camanchaca comes from the Andean indigenous word for the dense, cold coastal fog that rolls in from the Pacific Ocean and blankets the Atacama Desert above. The name was chosen deliberately to draw a poetic and geographic connection between the shrouded surface landscape and the crushing, lightless world thousands of metres below it.

Why Does This Discovery Matter?

The finding overturns a foundational assumption about hadal zone ecology. Amphipods — small, shrimp-like crustaceans — are among the most commonly found animals at extreme ocean depths, and the scientific consensus held that all hadal amphipods were opportunistic scavengers. Dulcibella camanchaca breaks that rule entirely. Examination of its anatomy revealed specialized raptorial appendages — essentially, grasping claws adapted for seizing and subduing live prey. This makes it an active apex predator within its ecosystem, hunting smaller organisms in conditions that were once considered the boundary of what complex predatory life could sustain. Researchers now describe it as the top predator of its hadal community.

What Does This Tell Us About Deep-Sea Life?

The discovery suggests that hadal ecosystems are more ecologically complex and dynamic than previously understood. If a predator capable of actively hunting prey can evolve and thrive at 8,000 metres, then the food webs operating in the deepest parts of the ocean likely involve more trophic layers — more steps between primary producers and top consumers — than scientists have mapped. It also raises immediate questions about what other undescribed predators may exist in trenches that have received even less scientific attention than the Atacama.

What Comes Next?

The specimens collected during the Fendouzhe expedition are now being studied in detail, with researchers examining the animal’s physiology, behavior, and genetic makeup. Further dives into the Atacama Trench and other hadal zones around the world are expected to follow, with scientists now actively looking for evidence of other active predators that may have been overlooked.