What will an alligator do on the ocean floor? This is exactly what the scientists set out to discover when they lowered three dead crocodiles to the bottom. What happened to the third blew them away. And literally!
The goal was to find out how deep-sea animals will react in search of a new and unusual source of food.
Scientists lowered the bodies of three crocodiles to the ocean floor
This scientific experiment was designed to better understand underwater food systems. The ones that worked and also the ones that not even the ocean was used to. In general, only sea snow is found as food at the bottom of the oceans. That is, waste created by animals, dead or alive. Organic remains are therefore the only food available in deep waters. Phytoplankton and other plants do not have optimal conditions for their existence there.
Although the alligator is not normally found in the marine environment, unless introduced to these places by natural elements, the scientist was interested in whether this food source would be used by the local “inhabitants” or left inactive.
Research team Craig McClain a Cliftoana Nunnallyho of the Louisiana University Marine Consortium decided to find out. She later shared the results of his work in a study just published in the scientific journal PLOS One.
What happened to the third blew them away
Then the scientists placed three dead alligators at a depth of about 6,600 meters in the Gulf of Mexico and waited to see what would happen. The last third crocodile has become crucial for them. They returned 51 long days after its location and what they saw took your breath away. The alligator was “defended” to the bone.
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What also caught their attention, however, was a strange brown fuzz mixed loosely with the alligator skeleton. A subsequent DNA study later revealed that it is a recently discovered worm species of the genus Osedax, which feeds on bone. According to scientists, this is a one-of-a-kind discovery. It was the first time that a similar worm of the genus Osedax was seen in the Gulf of Mexico.
“We confirmed that this is a new species by comparing the DNA of the animals we collected with the DNA of known Osedax species,” he said. Dixon River, a doctoral student in McClain’s lab at the University of Louisiana-Lafayette and co-author of the study. “We found that the DNA is different enough to qualify our samples as a new species.”
A diver stumbled upon another world below the surface. We have never seen it, wonderful scientists
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Two other dead alligators also offered interesting insights. One of them was eaten in less than 24 hours by giant isopods, known to have gone without food for years. Another of their alligators was completely lost. However, who or what took the creature away is still a mystery to scientists.
“Whatever it did, it had to be huge. The combined body and weight exceeded 36 kilograms and its shape and length made it quite bulky,” Dixon said. “Through some calculations, we were able to determine that the bite force required to cut our rope cleanly was equivalent to that of a large shark.”
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