When large marine animals like whales die, they sink down to the seabed. Once their flesh has been stripped away by scavengers and microbes, their corpses are colonized by a variety of specialized ...

Bone-eating worms, belonging to the genus Osedax, represent a remarkable example of evolutionary adaptation to ephemeral deep-sea habitats. These specialised annelids colonise the bones of beached ...

What happens when the ocean’s giants die? Despite their blubbery bodies, whales eventually sink to the bottom in what are called “whale falls,” becoming an essential source of food, nutrients and ...

When researchers lowered whale bones into the deep ocean, they expected zombie worms to quickly move in. Instead, after 10 years, none appeared — an unsettling result tied to low-oxygen waters in the ...

WASHINGTON - Two strange new species of worms, without eyes or stomachs or even mouths, have been discovered living on the bones of dead whales in California's Monterey Bay. "Who knows what we can ...