Scientists spent 15 years observing a single whale feeding its family. Not human families, but entire communities of marine life.
According to a new study published in Frontiers in Marine Science, the carcass of a massive whale discovered on the Pacific seafloor in 2009 has served as a thriving deep-sea ecosystem for more than two decades. Death was only the beginning for this whale.
The skeleton, known as the Clayoquot whale fall, was found nearly a mile beneath the surface off the coast of Vancouver Island. Most of its soft tissue had been eaten up by local marine life by the time researchers first found it. What remained offered the rare opportunity to watch an entire ecosystem grow around and feed off a dead whale.
A Whale Died Decades Ago. Scientists Are Still Watching the Ocean Feast on It
Whales are big hunks of meat and nutrients. When they die, all that heft sinks to the bottom of the sea, turning itself into a gigantic buffet. Using remotely operated vehicles, the research team spent 15 years keeping tabs on the more than 30 species living in and around the whale carcass, including clams, mussels, snails, tubeworms, deep-sea fish, and “zombie worms” that drill themselves into skeletons to eat bone from the inside out.
Maybe the most remarkable takeaway is how much of the whale stuck around after all these years. Much of the skull and vertebrae remained intact as bacteria ate away at the fat inside the bones. Meanwhile, a lot of the microbes produce sulfur compounds that sulfur-loving organisms feed off of, creating a kind of sub-ecosystem that’s an offshoot of the ecosystem created by the whale itself.
The whale has been decomposing for over two decades, and it’ll probably remain in its current state, known as the sulphophilic stage, for about another 10 years. That’s good news for the habitats that form around their carcasses, and even better news for the sicko scientists to get to watch their favorite whale decomposition TV show for another decade or so.
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