# A whale buried for 9.5 million years had unexpected company

Source: [Earth.com](https://www.earth.com/animals/a-whale-buried-for-9-5-million-years-had-unexpected-company/) · 2026-11-10 · Earth & Climate
Page: https://themorning.science/story/a-whale-buried-for-9-5-million-years-had-unexpected-company-292c618bc3c57b4b
Kind: research · Impact: low

## In 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.

## Coverage

- [A whale buried for 9.5 million years had unexpected company](https://www.earth.com/animals/a-whale-buried-for-9-5-million-years-had-unexpected-company/) — Earth.com, 2026-11-10

Tags: fossil, whale-fall, brittle-stars, paleontology, marine-biology

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Brief generated by AI (claude-haiku-5-5) from the reporting listed under Coverage. Headlines belong to their publishers. The Morning Science – https://themorning.science