Research
A whale buried for 9.5 million years had unexpected company
Earth.com · By Sanjana Gajbhiye ·
The Brief
- A fossil whale buried about 9.5 million years ago was found with brittle star companions.
- Brittle stars today gather around dead whales on the seafloor, sometimes at much higher densities than on surrounding seabed.
- Before this, no fossil had placed brittle stars at a whale carcass; fossil whale studies mostly reported clams, snails, and bone-eating animals.
Why it matters
The find extends the fossil record of animal communities that form around whale carcasses, giving paleontologists evidence of who colonised whale remains deep in the past.
Who’s affected
- paleontologists
- marine biologists studying deep-sea ecosystems
- #fossil
- #whale-fall
- #brittle-stars
- #paleontology
- #marine-biology
Brittle stars gather around dead whales on today’s seafloor, sometimes at much higher densities than on the surrounding seabed. Yet no fossil had ever placed them at a whale carcass. Studies of fossil whale carcasses have mostly reported clams, snails, and animals that eat bone…