Orange microbes coat the skeleton of a whale that fell to the seafloor off California. Craig Smith (University of Hawaii) and colleagues found that microbes decompose whale tissue and bones, producing hydrogen sulfide nutrients that sustain thriving animal populations. Whale-fall communities share many species with other chemosynthetic seafloor communities, such as hydrothermal vents and seeps, and may act as stepping-stones between them. (Craig R. Smith and Amy
Baco.)[back]
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