Bone Chuck
Acid-wielding worms
These "bone-devouring worms," known to both eat and inhabit dead whale skeletons and other bones on the sea floor.
Tiny 'bone-devouring worms', known to both eat and inhabit dead whale skeletons and other bones on the sea floor, have a unique ability to release bone-melting acid, scientists at Scripps Institution of Oceanography, University of California, San Diego have recently discovered. The work is being presented at the Society for Experimental Biology's 2012 meeting in Salzburg, Austria. Dr Sigrid Katz, a postdoctoral researcher working with Greg Rouse and Martin Tresguerres, said: "These worms are unique in using bone as a habitat and nutrient source. We have learned a lot about these worms in the past 10 years, but one of the most intriguing questions has been how they penetrate bone and take up nutrients." The worms, whose official genus name is Osedax, are up to 3-4 cm long and were discovered on a whale carcass in 2002.
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