Preliminary in situ observations of the archibenthal megafauna on the continental slope of the Atacama Trench off Peninsula de Mejillones, Northern Chile

Preprint ARPHA Preprints https://doi.org/10.3897/arphapreprints.e193865 (01 Apr 2026) https://doi.org/10.3897/arphapreprints.e193865 (01 Apr 2026) Submitted to ZooKeys Other versions: - Preprint InfoPreprint Info - CiteCite - MetricsMetrics - CommentComment - RelatedRelated - CitedCited ARPHA Preprints doi: 10.3897/arphapreprints.e193865 First posted 01 Apr 2026 Authors Guillermo Leandro Guzman - Corresponding author Facultad de Recursos Naturales Renovables, Universidad Arturo Prat, Iquique, Chile Probiota EIRL, Iquique, Chile 3Facultad de Ciencias, Universidad de Tarapacá, Iquique, Chile Museo del Mar UNAP, Iquique, Chile ATP Flight School, 738 Briscoe Blvd, Lawrenceville, Georgia 30046, Lawrenceville, United States of America Department of Marine Sciences, University of Puerto Rico, Mayagüez, United States of America Centro de Astrobiología (CAB), CSIC-INTA, Madrid, Spain Centro de Astrobiología (CAB), CSIC-INTA, Madrid, Spain Centro de Astrobiología (CAB), CSIC-INTA, Madrid, Spain Centro de Astrobiología (CAB), CSIC-INTA, Madrid, Spain Centro de Astrobiología (CAB), CSIC-INTA, Madrid, Spain Centro de Astrobiología (CAB), CSIC-INTA, Madrid, Spain Department of Ocean Engineering and Marine Science, Florida, United States of America Centro de Astrobiología (CAB), CSIC-INTA, Madrid, Spain Centro de Astrobiología (CAB), CSIC-INTA, Madrid, Spain Centro de Astrobiología (CAB), CSIC-INTA, Madrid, Spain 9Department of Chemistry, The Pennsylvania State University, Pennsylvania, United States of America Florida Institute of Technology, Florida, United States of America Instituto de Fomento Pesquero, Valparaiso, Chile Probiota EIRL, Iquique, Chile Museo Nacional de Ciencias Naturales, Madrid, Spain Centro de Astrobiología (CSIC-INTA), Madrid, Spain Conflict of interest The authors have declared that no competing interests exist. Supporting agencies Funding We thank the support of the Schmidt Ocean Institute, which by allowing the use of the RV Falkor (too) and all the instruments on board, including the Remotely Operated Vehicle (ROV SuBastian) allowed this research to be possible. We also thank SHOA, the Servicio Hidrográfico y Oceanográfico de la Armada de Chile. This research has been funded by: the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation/State Agency of Research MCIN/AEI/ 10.13039/501100011033 and “ERDF A way of making Europe” through the projects PID2022-140180OB-C21 (D.C.), RYC2018-023943-I and PID2021-126746NB-I00 (L.S.-G.), Human Frontiers Science Program grant nº RGY0066/2018 (A.A-B. and A.M.) PID2021-124362NB-I00 MCIN/AEI/10.13039/501100011033/FEDER, UE. (A.A-B and J.W.), project PID2022-142490OB-C31 funded by MCIN/AEI/10.13039/501100011033 (O.P-B., A.M., J.S-E. O.H.M.), INTA project SIGS22001 (M.A.T.), Percy Sladen Memorial Fund (N.V.S). A.A.-B and I.H. also thanks travel support given by the Universidad Autónoma de Chile. This is an open access preprint distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY 4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.