Life after death: how fallen whales create rich ecosystems 100 years into the future (8 photos)

For oceanic inhabitants, whales are something like fairy-tale elves. They are rarely born, manage to survive a dozen generations of fish, and their death reverberates throughout the entire ecosystem. But if after the death of an elf in fantasy nature mourns, then the death of a whale is a celebration of the belly, which can last up to 100 years!





Come on, lunch!

Whale afterlife can be divided into 5 stages. The first one is the most unsympathetic. A freshly deceased whale does not drown, but turns into a floating barge bloated with gases. Immediately after the digestive tract stops working, intestinal bacteria take over. They digest leftover food and release volatile gases. And a few days later there is a lot of gas.



Being near such carcasses can be extremely dangerous.

As a result, the animal swells from the huge volume of hydrogen and methane. And outside it is eaten by sharks and other large predatory fish that live in the upper tier of the ocean. Of course, this cannot continue for long. At best, one of the scavengers will bite deeper than it should and release all the gas. At worst, the internal pressure will become so great that the whale will explode. The sight is not pleasant and looks like a supernova explosion.





They had never seen so much food in their lives. To be honest, me too.

After the deafening end of the first stage, the carcass of the huge beast quickly sinks to a depth of 2-3 kilometers. Hagfish, deep-sea sharks, crayfish, amphipods and shrimp greedily rush to the whale remains and devour them. But no matter how hard they try, they cannot eat more than 60 kilos per day. Therefore, the eating of soft tissue lasts for months.



This whale is under the control of octopuses. Find yourself someone else.

At this time, a new ecosystem is formed around the dead whale. Having fallen to the bottom, the whale brought with it about two tons of pure carbon, as well as kilograms of micro- and macroelements. This is incredible wealth. Usually, such a volume of resources reaches the bottom in 100-200 years, but here everything fell at once. Within a radius of 2-3 hundred meters from the whale, the amount of plankton and bacteria increases sharply. Following them, entire fields of polychaete worms and other filter feeders appear. Then filter eaters and filter eaters appear on the playing field. Life is gaining momentum.



This is the kind of beauty a dead whale can produce.

The ecosystem does not even think of slowing down, even when all the soft tissue has already been eaten. Almost all organic matter is concentrated within a radius of half a kilometer from the place where the whale fell. The number of burrowing animals, which pass through cubic meters of bottom sediments every day, is increasing. Only after 5-6 years will the density of organic matter decrease to the standard level.



The feast is also attended by sea spiders - creepy lovers of carrion and filter feeders.

But on the skeleton, life will continue to boil for decades. Whale bones are rich in fats, they make up up to 6% of the skeleton's mass. And all this wealth is very difficult to extract. The remains are colonized by special worms - Osedax. These creatures live exclusively in the bones of sea giants. Their food reserves will last for 50-100 years to come!



Bone worms in all their glory.

And even when every last molecule of organic matter is eaten and carried away from the bones, the whale carcass will still be a hotspot of biodiversity in the middle of the desert floor. Thoroughly cleaned bones are a great place for sponges and corals to attach! The whale turns into a small coral reef, a deep-sea oasis. This is how one death can give birth to thousands of lives!



Remains of the feast.