a month agoNew species of worms eating bones are discovered
Periskopi(6 years ago)
(6 years ago)A new species of bone - feeding worm has been discovered by scientists who threw three alligator bodies into the ocean floor to see how long they can stay. A worm of the type Oedax, which colonizes the bones and consumes the lipids inside, was found in the remains of one of [...] corpses.
A worm of the type Oedax, which colonizes the bones and consumes the lipids inside, was found in the remains of one of the alligators ' corpses.
Oredax has never been observed in the Gulf of Mexico before, nor by eating the bones of a creature from the crocodile family.
American scientists threw the remains of the alligators back into the sea in 2019 to study how hungry creatures would react to the ocean floor.
The three bodies were placed at a depth of some 500 feet [6,500 m], and after 51 days, the alligators had been stripped of meat, leaving some bone waste and new species of ordax worms.
The results of the study were described as the first experimental eater of reptiles in the deep ocean, Kosovo Press broadcasts.
The deep ocean is a food wilderness, with food pots,” said co-author of the Clifton Nunnaly study of the Louisiana University Destar consortium.
Some of these options are sources on the ocean floor where chemicals are derived from food falling from the surface of the ocean”, he added.
