Super cool video; per their website:

Davidson Seamount (4,101') is an inactive volcanic undersea mountain habitat off the coast of central California, and is considered to be an area of special national significance. One of the largest known seamounts in U.S. waters, the seamount has been called "an oasis in the deep" in an otherwise flat seafloor, hosting large coral forests, vast sponge fields, crabs, deep-sea fishes, shrimp, basket stars, and high numbers of rare and unidentified benthic species. Recent research suggests that this pristine area may be necessary for maintaining healthy coastal populations in the MBNMS, and it is important to characterize the range of these populations on adjacent hard substrate habitat.

Whale Fall Actively Devoured by Scavengers at Davidson Seamount

Very cool. I wonder how long it's been down there. Weeks? Months? Longer? That's a lot of animal to clean.

Yes, very cool. Surprised it wasn't covered in crabs

Fascinating to see, mother nature has a plan for all of that protein to be useful to some creature.

I got to go on safari in Tanzania 30 years ago and it completely reset any ideas I had about mother nature. The food chain there is hyper aggressive.

You would come upon a dead wildebeest and the buzzards would have moved in and be having their lunch. You go to take a look and they are bigger over there, 6 foot wingspan and they turn toward you to run you off. Then the hyenas come in and say that's my lunch! Then the lions come in and run off the hyenas and have lunch. And then 10 million ants from a 4 foot tall anthill nearby move in and take the carcass down to nothing, and all of that happens in a day or two. The scavenger food chain doesn't let anything go to waste.

Life is tenacious and everywhere. If you go to the most inhospitable place on the planet- Life is there taking advantage of the opportunity.

quote:

Watch Giant Isopods Eat an Alligator in the Deep Sea

https://www.realclearscience.c...in_the_deep_sea.html

quote:

Originally posted by BigSwede:
Yes, very cool. Surprised it wasn't covered in crabs

I'd guess the crabs and larger scavengers have already visited and moved on.


Remember.... this is your future if you end up at the bottom of the sea. Devoured in totality by various creatures, worms, and bacteria.

I learned a new term today. Whale Fall. The subject line read awkwardly for me until I looked up the term. Thanks for sharing.

I was astonished by the number of octopi.