76: Weird Worms Feast on Whale Bones

When Robert Vrijenhoek of the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute sent the robotic submarine Tiburon to the nearby seafloor, he and his team hoped it would uncover clam beds. Instead, the sub stumbled across the decaying remains of a gray whale blanketed by strange worms. At first, biologists thought they were ordinary tube worms. Their red feathery crowns seemed common enough, but the worms protruded from the bones. The sub brought up a rib from the mammoth carcass, and the researchers soon discovered the fiery plumes to be the gills of two entirely new species, related to worms, that live near deep-sea hydrothermal vents. Lacking eyes, stomachs, or mouths, they had unusual green, mucousy “roots” extending deep into the bones. Dissection revealed symbiotic bacteria living within the worms, accounting for both their color and their source of nutrition—oils and fats found in bone. “We know of no other animal that ...