Bone-devouring worms discovered
Amanda Leigh Haag
Deep-sea species may have completely new form of metabolism.

Two worm species discovered in the dark recesses of the deep sea could rival
the macabre beasts of your childhood nightmares. Scientists have named a new
genus, Osedax, which is Latin for "bone devourer", for worms that thrive by
excavating the bones of fallen whale carcasses.

The worms contain bacteria that help them digest the fats and oils of the
whale skeletons. This type of symbiotic relationship has never been seen
before, and may represent a completely new type of metabolism.

Researchers from the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute (MBARI) in
Moss Landing, California, discovered a whale skeleton that was "carpeted
with worms" while searching for clam beds in the trough of Monterey Canyon,
some 3,000 metres deep.

But the worms were like nothing they had ever seen before. The females -
roughly the thickness of a pencil and a few centimetres in length - lack
eyes, mouths or stomachs. Instead they consist of a balloon-like egg sac,
which branches into a greenish root system.

These branching roots grow into the whalebone to extract fats and oils from
the marrow. Symbiotic bacteria that live inside the roots break down the
lipids, but how nutrients are transferred from the bones to the bacteria and
then to the worms is not yet known.

Read the rest at Nature
http://www.nature.com/news/2004/040726/full/040726-10.html

Posted by
Robert Karl Stonjek
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