Vegas buffets got nothin' on this
October 31, 2006 3:42 PM Subscribe
Your humpback has gone to a watery grave and you don't know what to do? Time to call in the bone eating zombie worms! (And maybe invite a hagfish or two)
Fascinating post. I will always remember the term "whale fall". I imagine it tumbling slowly, over and over again, until it lands, nutritionally equivalent to over 2,000 years of regular detritus. And without even a bowl of petunias to keep it company.
posted by imperium at 4:19 PM on October 31, 2006 [1 favorite]
posted by imperium at 4:19 PM on October 31, 2006 [1 favorite]
I think hagfish are where eelskin wallets come from.
posted by Iron Rat at 4:41 PM on October 31, 2006
posted by Iron Rat at 4:41 PM on October 31, 2006
Finally....nice post.
posted by yodelingisfun at 4:52 PM on October 31, 2006
posted by yodelingisfun at 4:52 PM on October 31, 2006
I'm confused about the "bone eating zombie worms". Specifically the zombie aspect. Are they undead? Were they created by a voodoo priest? Both?
If they latch on to me, will I become a zombie? Or a worm? Or a voodoo priest? Or some hellspawn combination of the above?
Because that would be pretty bitchin', were it the case.
posted by quin at 5:36 PM on October 31, 2006
If they latch on to me, will I become a zombie? Or a worm? Or a voodoo priest? Or some hellspawn combination of the above?
Because that would be pretty bitchin', were it the case.
posted by quin at 5:36 PM on October 31, 2006
"These male worms looked as if they had never developed past their larval stage-their bodies still contained bits of yolk-but they also contained copious quantities of sperm."
That's not a new discovery. I knew plenty of those things in high school.
posted by twjordan at 5:42 PM on October 31, 2006
That's not a new discovery. I knew plenty of those things in high school.
posted by twjordan at 5:42 PM on October 31, 2006
from the hagfish page, there's a link describing a hagfish slime cooking experiment. a participant concluded he "could feel the slime pumping through his veins"
posted by gnutron at 5:58 PM on October 31, 2006
posted by gnutron at 5:58 PM on October 31, 2006
Of course if it had beached itself the logical answer would be to blow it up.
posted by clevershark at 6:22 PM on October 31, 2006
posted by clevershark at 6:22 PM on October 31, 2006
Those zombie worms are beautiful!
posted by owhydididoit at 10:04 PM on October 31, 2006
posted by owhydididoit at 10:04 PM on October 31, 2006
I will be forever happy that this post added the phrase "whale fall" to my vocabulary.
posted by jessamyn at 10:18 PM on October 31, 2006
posted by jessamyn at 10:18 PM on October 31, 2006
the worms crawl in and the worms crawl out
in your stomach and out your mouth
posted by flapjax at midnite at 4:36 AM on November 1, 2006
in your stomach and out your mouth
posted by flapjax at midnite at 4:36 AM on November 1, 2006
You can see this very thing in the popular DVD series, "Blue Planet." Much better than reading about it.
posted by agregoli at 8:14 AM on November 1, 2006
posted by agregoli at 8:14 AM on November 1, 2006
My daughter's high school marine biology class found a dead baby whale on the beach, buried it in the woods until the ants cleaned the bones, glued the skeleton back together, and it is now hanging in the museum.
posted by cedar key at 1:53 PM on November 1, 2006
posted by cedar key at 1:53 PM on November 1, 2006
"Marine snow" is pretty good, too.
Those symbiotic bacteria are interesting. There was a time not so long ago when such oil as we had came mainly from whales, not holes in the ground, and these bacteria apparently break down whale oil for the benefit of the worms. According to the 3rd link:
the symbiotic bacteria in Osedax spp. worms represent an entirely different evolutionary strategy-they break down whale-bone lipids (fats and oils) directly to provide food for the worms. This is the first time that a lipid-degrading bacteria has been observed in a symbiotic relationship.
I wonder if those bacteria would be up for trying out a new symbiotic partner, namely us, for the purpose of helping clean up oil spills. We use such bacteria already, but I wouldn't be surprised if these guys know some nice little tricks we haven't seen before.
posted by jamjam at 8:43 PM on November 1, 2006
Those symbiotic bacteria are interesting. There was a time not so long ago when such oil as we had came mainly from whales, not holes in the ground, and these bacteria apparently break down whale oil for the benefit of the worms. According to the 3rd link:
the symbiotic bacteria in Osedax spp. worms represent an entirely different evolutionary strategy-they break down whale-bone lipids (fats and oils) directly to provide food for the worms. This is the first time that a lipid-degrading bacteria has been observed in a symbiotic relationship.
I wonder if those bacteria would be up for trying out a new symbiotic partner, namely us, for the purpose of helping clean up oil spills. We use such bacteria already, but I wouldn't be surprised if these guys know some nice little tricks we haven't seen before.
posted by jamjam at 8:43 PM on November 1, 2006
The tricks I have in mind, to amplify a little, are to do with them being in a symbiotic relationship in the first place.
It seems to have come as a bit of a shock, recently, that soil bacteria expected to detoxify relatively stable PDBE's (probably used as flame retardants in plastic parts of of the very computer you're reading this on), metabolized them instead into more toxic PDBE's, which could make the bacteria more successful by inhibiting the growth of competitors, perhaps.
I don't know if this is a common problem with the free-living bacteria we are already using to clean up oil spills, but it could be. If the bacteria living in these worms metabolized (whale) oil into compounds that were too toxic, however, it would kill the worms. Therefore, we might expect these bacteria to do a better job of reducing the toxicity of spilled oil.
posted by jamjam at 1:00 PM on November 2, 2006
It seems to have come as a bit of a shock, recently, that soil bacteria expected to detoxify relatively stable PDBE's (probably used as flame retardants in plastic parts of of the very computer you're reading this on), metabolized them instead into more toxic PDBE's, which could make the bacteria more successful by inhibiting the growth of competitors, perhaps.
I don't know if this is a common problem with the free-living bacteria we are already using to clean up oil spills, but it could be. If the bacteria living in these worms metabolized (whale) oil into compounds that were too toxic, however, it would kill the worms. Therefore, we might expect these bacteria to do a better job of reducing the toxicity of spilled oil.
posted by jamjam at 1:00 PM on November 2, 2006
« Older Nigel Kneale dies | Thick Description Newer »
This thread has been archived and is closed to new comments
Whenever I read about newly discovered aquatic life, I'm always struck by just how weird the ocean depths can be. I still await with bated breath the day they discover a truly monstrous creature in its depths: perhaps a kraken!
/swoon
posted by The God Complex at 4:05 PM on October 31, 2006