Whale falls become deep-sea oases lasting decades after death
When a great whale sinks to the abyss, scavengers strip soft tissue within months — then snails, worms, and bacteria colonize the skeleton for years to decades.
Sulfur-loving microbes dissolve bone lipids and feed chemosynthetic communities similar in spirit to vents, creating a rare hard-substrate habitat on mud plains.
A whale’s death is a habitat birth. One carcass can sustain a succession of deep-sea neighborhoods long after the animal’s last breath.
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