“In the darkest depths of the world’s oceans lurks a creature seemingly torn from the pages of a retro horror novel and with an appearance that would fit well within the real of science fiction - the Bone-Eating Worm!

Their name is no misnomer, this deep-ocean organism (genus Osedax) preys exclusively on bones! While there is some debate as to the types of bones that they naturally consume, it is currently believed that these strange lifeforms primarily feast on the exposed bones of submerged, decomposing, whales.

The bone-eating worm plays host to a symbiotic bacterial colony, residing in their roots, that produces an acid to tunnel through the densest of whalebone in search of the lipids they crave!

Only discovered in February 2002 by the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute, they were found feasting on a grey whale at a depth of 2,893 m (9,491 ft)!”

Ben Lovatt