New whale graveyard

[warshipadmin]

Here's the paper, you've probably heard about this on the news.
Implications
The discovery of whale-fall communities in the Diamantina Zone at depths exceeding 6,700 m establishes one of the deepest known whale-fall ecosystems in the ocean, extending the known depth range of such habitats by more than 2,500 m. Isolation, imposed by extreme depth, apparently has facilitated the development of a distinct, specialized whale-fall community dominated by species that may be new to science, as indicated by our molecular data (Extended Data Table 1). This not only expands our understanding of metazoan species richness in the deep-sea ecosystems but, given that we are still in the early stages of discovery of deep-sea whale-fall fauna7, also indicates that these species probably exhibit ecological novelty and represent cases of adaptive radiation. For instance, these whale falls share key ecological and evolutionary links with deep-sea cold seeps and hydrothermal vents6,19, including those in hadal trenches42,43, as evidenced by shared taxa such as chemosymbiotic bivalves (Adipicola, Abyssogena and Thyasiridae), gastropods (Phymorhynchus) and squat lobsters (Munidopsis). The results support the hypothesis that deep-sea whale falls act as evolutionary hotspots and biogeographic stepping stones for sulfide-dependent fauna in the deep ocean2,7,44,45,46,47. In the total survey area of 0.64 km2 (from 32 dives), five active whale falls were observed. This yields a density of 7.81 whale falls per square kilometre. Aligned along a northwest–southeast axis for 1,200 km, these falls may form a previously unrecognized ‘whale-fall community supercorridor’. This extensive biogeographic feature could have an important role in the dispersal, connectivity and evolution of deep-sea chemosynthetic communities across the Southern Indian Ocean.

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-026-10546-z

[Belushi TD]

Squat lobsters?

I feel like there's a B-52's parody there......


Belushi TD