AP, NEW YORK
Scientists have discovered communities of marine life — including jellyfish, tubeworms and brittle stars — thriving on a whale graveyard.The graveyards form when whale carcasses fall to the sea floor, becoming a sustaining snack for nearby critters. This one, which is up to 7km below the surface of the southeastern Indian Ocean, spans the largest area, and is so far the deepest found.A whale’s sheer size and the unique chemistry of its bones are the keys to forming these unique underwater neighborhoods, said Song Xikun (宋希坤), a biologist with the Chinese Academy of Sciences’ Institute of Deep-sea Science and Engineering who was involved with the latest find.
A robot arm on a submersible maneuvers a whale bone that has deep-sea creatures on it in the Diamantina Fracture Zone on the floor of the Indian Ocean in an undated photograph.
“At the same time, the very nature of the deep ocean makes these sites exceptionally difficult for scientists to locate,” Song wrote in an e-mail.Researchers explored the remains during multiple deep-sea submersible trips in 2023, collecting samples and mapping the extent of the necropolis. They found five carcass sites, including skulls belonging to beaked and baleen whales.
