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Meet the Record-Breaking Deep Sea Snail That Lives 6,000 Meters Below the Surface

Bathylepeta wadatsumi was inspired by an anime character and was discovered with the DSV Shinkai 6500, a crewed submersible, to observe specimens in their natural habitat.

ByRosie McCall
Habitus of Bathylepeta wadatsumi with a clear feeding trail behind. (Image Credit: Chen et al.) Chen et al.

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Bathylepeta wadatsumi is a record-breaking limpet occupying volcanic rock deep below the surface of the northwestern Pacific Ocean.

If the moniker sounds familiar, it may be because the species was named after “Large Monk” Wadatsumi, a character from the manga show ONE PIECE, thanks to its (relatively-speaking) generous size. Researchers described it for the first time in the journal Zoosystematics and Evolution.

This particularly hardy sea snail is notable for its ability to withstand the frigid temps and crushingly high pressure of the deep ocean. It is found 5,922 meters (nearly 20,000 feet) below sea level, making it the deepest any true limpet has been spotted. Indeed, it is this deep-sea habitat that has allowed the limpet to evade human detection for such a long time.

Until now, there were two other species from the genus Bathylepeta (B. linseae and B. laevis), discovered in Antarctica and Chile respectively. Specimens have ...

  • Rosie McCall

    Rosie is a freelance writer living in London. She has covered science and health topics for publications, including IFLScience, Newsweek, and Health.

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