Discovered in the deep: the worm that eats bones

Thought to have existed since the Cretaceous, more than 30 species of Osedax - 'bone devourers' or zombie worms - feast on whale skeletons? Discovered in the deep: the mini cities of hairy-chested Hoff crabsThe deep sea is home to a group of animals that look like tiny plants. They have no mouths, no stomachs and no anuses. They live inside a tube with a feathery red plume sticking out of one end and a clump of roots at the other.Deep-sea scientists first identified them in 2002, growing like a shaggy carpet on a whale skeleton they encountered by chance, nearly 3,000 metres deep in Monterey Bay, California. A deep-diving robot brought up samples which revealed these were not plants but worms that eat bones, now officially called Osedax - the bone-devourers in Latin. Continue reading...