Did you know that there is an ecosystem of creatures which survives by feasting on the bodies of dead whales? In this remarkable piece form Katherine Latham we learn that “when a whale dies it becomes a colossal island of nutrients – attracting weird and wonderful creatures to feast.”
Whales usually die far out at sea and then something remarkable happens. “In death, the whale gives life, becoming an immense island of food. Nutrients usually arrive in the deep sea as tiny particles of organic matter, known as marine snow. But when a whale sinks to the seabed, it is said to be the “largest organic input” to reach the deep ocean floor at any one time. A single whale can be equivalent to several thousand years’ worth of marine snow – and its bounty can feed a whole ecosystem for decades.”
Ms Graham then introduces us to the remarkable range of creatures who then arrive to party on the whale’s body. Ms Graham’s article contains hi-resolution pictures of these creatures and we would recommend that you see those pics.
“The “deep water scavenging community” are the first to arrive, says Adrian Glover, deep-sea ecologist at the Natural History Museum in London, UK. “Which includes vertebrates like hagfish and sleeper sharks, and lots of scavenging amphipods – crustaceans like shrimps. They eat the flesh, exposing the bone.” This “mobile scavenger phase”, he says, can last years.”
Just in case you didn’t know “Hagfish are the only known living animals that have a skull but no vertebrae. These fish burrow face-first into their food, eating it from the inside out.”
A few years after the whale’s death, the next group of diners arrive. “After the large scavengers have had their fill and the bones are stripped, smaller diners arrive. “Osedax – the ‘bone-eating worms’ – arrive in large numbers,” says Rouse. Osedax are a type of polychaete worm. Commonly known as bristle worms, these are a diverse and abundant group of segmented worms that populate a whale fall in their thousands. Some of the species at this “enrichment-opportunist” stage have only ever been found at the site of a whale fall.”
Again, just in case you didn’t know, Ms Latham informs us “The “bone-eating snot-flower” – Osedax mucofloris – in a polychaete worm that was first discovered in 2005 on the carcass of a whale. These bone-eating worms inject acid into the bone. “It’s like they’re putting their gut inside the bone and absorbing it directly – quite strange,” says Glover.
Over the course of a decade, an entire population grows, lives and dies on a single whale fall. When all the skeleton has been consumed, just before they die, the Osedax release larvae that will travel on ocean currents in the hope of happening upon another whale carcass to settle on, and start the whole cycle again.
“They decalcify the bone, getting to the collagen,” says Rouse. “The bone then becomes very spongy and can be torn apart by crabs and other scavengers.””
The story is not over yet. When us humans aren’t around to mess things up, nature’s magic plays out in a never ending chain of dining & partying: “Organic matter spills out from the carcass, enriching the surrounding seabed with nutrients. Now, tens of thousands of opportunistic worms, molluscs and crustaceans arrive to hoover up any remaining scraps of blubber or flesh, and to sift through the seafloor sediment.
The Japanese spider crab is thought to live up to 100 years and is the biggest crab in the world. Its main body can grow up to 30cm (12in) wide, but its legs keep growing and can span up to 3.8m (12ft) from claw to claw – almost the length of a small car.” (In the BBC article, the pic of the spider crab suggests that it is nature’s answer to a deepwater JCB.)
Then come a group of creatures who feast for upto 50 years on the body of a single whale: “At the same time that the scavengers are digesting the bones, a more specialised set of feeders joins the banquet – and feasts for up to 50 years. This is the sulphophilic – or sulphur-loving – stage. As bacteria continue to break the bones down, hydrogensulphide is released. These gases are consumed by chemosynthetic organisms.
Chemoautotrophs are organisms that can create energy from chemical reactions, a process known as chemosynthesis, as opposed to plants which need sunlight and carbon dioxide to perform photosynthesis. These chemical-consuming microbes often form close symbiotic relationships with invertebrate hosts, providing them with nearly all of the nutrition they need.
“The ability of organisms to evolve to exploit these remarkable, weird, amazing adaptations to these unusual environments… we’re constantly surprised,” says Glover.
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