A three-millimeter egg can survive water pressure six hundred times greater than our atmosphere
Deep-sea flatworms have shattered records by laying resilient egg capsules in the Kuril-Kamchatka Trench, where embryos develop under crushing hydrostatic pressure that would prove fatal to most other forms of complex life.
In the dark depths of the Kuril-Kamchatka Trench, researchers from Hokkaido University discovered leathery black egg capsules thriving at 6,200 meters. These three-millimeter capsules protect up to seven embryos from pressures exceeding 600 times that of our atmosphere. This depth nearly doubles the previous record for flatworms, proving that their simple body plans are perfectly adapted for the hadal zone.
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