Presumably? Eating whale bones sounds like a pretty ephemeral existence depending on its energy requirements. I would suggest it eats other things and uses whale bones to complete a life cycle, maybe it needs calcium or something?
“A key question in deep sea biology is how tiny invertebrates such as O. mucofloris are able to disperse between these isolated habitats, across the vast distances of the ocean floor”
Well maybe they live in live whales as well
The Rev Dodgson said:
“A key question in deep sea biology is how tiny invertebrates such as O. mucofloris are able to disperse between these isolated habitats, across the vast distances of the ocean floor”Well maybe they live in live whales as well
It may not be completely unlikely. In fact it could well be the case.
There was a TV documentary about this many years ago.
“Osedax mucofloris was first found on the remains of a dead whale in a fjord on the Swedish North Sea coast. The whale had been on the sea floor for several months and had already been stripped of flesh by scavenging organisms. The worm appeared as a pink, flower-like plume growing straight out of the side of the bones.”
IIRC, the whale was a baleen whale calf that had been killed by Orcas. The TV documentary showed how the Orcas harassed the mother until she was exhausted, in order to get the calf. That’s how the scientists knew where to send the undersea camera.