When a whale dies and sinks to the bottom of the ocean, its carcass becomes a banquet for smaller marine organisms, supplying food for decades. It’s a perfect example of the circle of life—and also a decent way to discover new species able to survive solely because of these so-called whale falls.
In fact, researchers recently found a constellation of new brittle star fossils near a whale fall that dates back some 9.5 million years.
Read more: “Are Killer Whales Also Cannibals?”
As described in a newly published study, researchers first discovered an ancient beaked whale—specifically fossils of a lower jaw and four vertebrae from the same carcass—in the Gram clay pit in southern Denmark, which was once part of the North Sea.
The whale bones were found in 2018, but it’s only just now that the brittle star species has been identified. These slender-armed, distant relatives of starfish have been around for millions of years, but this is thought to be the earliest brittle star to ever be uncovered at a whale fall feast.
While the researchers can’t say for certain that the brittle star turned up for the whale buffet, it seems likely. Other samples collected farther from the whale remains, for instance, had none of the brittle star skeletal plates. “We considered whether currents had simply concentrated the plates around the bones, or whether local chemical conditions had helped preserve them,” study author Ben Thuy said in a statement. “However, sea-urchin fragments of comparable size and mineral composition occurred in every sample studied. This makes a preservation-only explanation less likely and supports the interpretation that the brittle stars lived on or close to the whale carcass.”
The new species has been named Ophiura huebnerjenseni, in honor of Holger Hübner and Thomas Jensen, founders of the Wacken Open Air heavy metal festival in Germany—an event notorious for its muddy conditions, not dissimilar to the mud that this new brittle star has been preserved in for millennia.
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Lead Image: Karim Zanaty
