Bone-Eating Worms, Super-Sized Isopods, and Other Surprises, Oh My!

February 13, 2022 5:47 PM

The idea driving the experiment was simple: if you feed them, they will come. In this case, “they” were the scavengers that float, swim, burrow, and crawl in the muck at the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico. These scavengers can’t live without food, but because plants and phytoplankton cannot grow in the deepest ocean where there is no light, biologists believe that the organisms found there largely subsist on “food falls” that drift down in the form of kelp or dead fish and other animals. McClain suspected that decomposing alligators might play a role in feeding the invertebrates that dwell at the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico. Understanding the fate of dead creatures—like alligators—on the seafloor would help to fill gaps in knowledge about both the food chain and the carbon cycle in the ocean depths.
posted by ShooBoo (19 comments total)

Terrific article. I love that we have no idea what could tear an alligator carcass of a rope at 2000 meters and they’re just like “sharks maybe?”
posted by aspersioncast at 7:12 PM on February 13, 2022 [5 favorites]

Or, worse, "a bunch of sharks, working together". Kinda like a tornado of sharks.
posted by mollweide at 7:28 PM on February 13, 2022 [4 favorites]

Seriously, though, this is an excellent article highlighting how little we know of an ecosystem (well, really ecosystems) that cover half the surface of our planet.
posted by mollweide at 7:29 PM on February 13, 2022

Those are some big-ass isopods. I remember from wading in the Gulf up to my knees (which takes about 500 feet of wading) that it is fairly "crunchy" in more sediment-y places.
posted by credulous at 8:36 PM on February 13, 2022 [2 favorites]

It's dead alligators all the way down.
posted by y2karl at 8:53 PM on February 13, 2022 [1 favorite]

I attended a talk by one of the people who first described the bone eating worm genus.

Chatting afterwords, he said they came up with the name Osedax, but discovered it was already in use by an obscure Scandinavian metal band (naturally, it does mean bone eater after all).

Anyway, he said the band said they were cool with sharing the name with the worm, and so hey, here we are.

What a world!
posted by SaltySalticid at 8:58 PM on February 13, 2022 [15 favorites]

Well. I’m certainly not going down there anytime soon.
posted by Naberius at 9:00 PM on February 13, 2022 [2 favorites]

Came over for the giant isopods, stayed for the snotworms.
posted by ovvl at 9:08 PM on February 13, 2022 [4 favorites]

There's some discussion about the worms in this footage of a whale fall from MBARI's Nautilus EV.
posted by brachiopod at 9:49 PM on February 13, 2022 [3 favorites]

Metafilter: a bunch of sharks, working together
posted by Hairy Lobster at 9:55 PM on February 13, 2022 [2 favorites]

this is just to say
i have eaten
the alligator
that was on
the ocean floor

and which you
were probably
hoping
to study

forgive me
it was delicious
so chewy
and so cold
posted by kaibutsu at 11:01 PM on February 13, 2022 [28 favorites]

Chatting afterwords, he said they came up with the name Osedax, but discovered it was already in use by an obscure Scandinavian metal band (naturally, it does mean bone eater after all). Anyway, he said the band said they were cool with sharing the name with the worm, and so hey, here we are.

Naming your metal band after a bone eating worm would be pretty cool. Having a genus of bone eating worms named after your metal band is impossibly cool.
posted by justsomebodythatyouusedtoknow at 11:01 PM on February 13, 2022 [21 favorites]

After I typed that up, more came back to me and I realize I got some details wrong: the band is The Osedax, and listed as based in the US. Also this info was in the main talk, which featured a slide of their album art while he told the anecdote of the name.
posted by SaltySalticid at 6:07 AM on February 14, 2022 [1 favorite]

The article mentions, but contains no images of, Peinaleopolynoe elvesi, which is a shame. (The researchers should have gone with P. lisafrankei, IMO.)
posted by Spathe Cadet at 6:14 AM on February 14, 2022 [2 favorites]

Who doesn't love an isopod? I wish the terrestrial version got as big.

Previously.
posted by Bee'sWing at 6:35 AM on February 14, 2022 [1 favorite]

Something an ex-coworker told me, which has stuck with me for over a decade: "When you go in the water, you're entering the food chain."
posted by booth at 10:18 AM on February 14, 2022 [2 favorites]

Who doesn't love an isopod?

Everyone in Claridge, Maryland, for starters.
posted by Mr. Bad Example at 2:44 PM on February 14, 2022 [2 favorites]

Who doesn't love an isopod?

cstross liked them so much, he gave them a starring role in his book The Apocalypse Codex!
posted by Bee'sWing at 3:30 AM on February 15, 2022

(does pink isopod happy dance)
posted by The Ardship of Cambry at 11:30 AM on February 15, 2022