Whale Skeleton On Ocean Floor

Once the body comes to rest biologists refer to this as a whale fall as you would guess other fish and sea animals initially eat the meat off the carcass.

Whale skeleton on ocean floor.

About 20 hours into the expedition the live feed known as nautilus showed a five metre long baleen whale skeleton belly up on the ocean floor. On the sea floor these carcasses can create complex localized ecosystems that supply sustenance to deep sea organisms for decades. The discovery was made almost a mile below the surface in an undersea crater and includes the find of at least nine new species of deep sea organisms thriving on the bones. Found off the monterey coast whale corpse offers an underwater feast on the deep ocean floor scientists find dead whale is a food boon on the ravenous ocean floor.

A five meter long whale carcass has been spotted on the pacific ocean floor by divers from the monterey bay national marine sanctuary who had been researching a large grouping of female octopuses. Whale skeletons were first discovered in wadi al hitan or the. This is unlike in shallower waters where a whale carcass will be consumed by scavengers over a relatively. When whales die in the ocean their bodies eventually sink to the bottom.

Animals including octopus were. However what came as a surprise to ocean researchers was the finding that dead whales support entire ecosystems. Watch marine life feast on a complete whale skeleton on the ocean floor it s spooky season on the seafloor too the team discovered a whale fall while exploring davidson seamount off central. The nautilus team of deep sea explorers found a whale skeleton on the pacific ocean floor off the california coast in the monterey bay national marine sanctuary.

A whale fall occurs when the carcass of a whale has fallen onto the ocean floor at a depth greater than 1 000 m 3 300 ft in the bathyal or abyssal zones. Desert where the ancient fossilised remains of nature s gentle giants lie on the floor of a long lost ocean. Unlike other baleen whales grays swim on their sides just above the sea floor sucking mud and sand into one side of their mouths to get at shrimp like.