Worms found on the ocean floor, referred to as "zombie" worms, feed on dead carcasses of whales by excreting an acid which helps enter the nutrients inside the bones, reports CBS News.
A new research conducted by the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, University of California, San Diego, shows that Osedax, also known as "zombie worms", are highly capable of piercing through the bones of dead carcasses of whales by secreting a bone-melting acid. The worms do not have any mouth parts, and hence rely on the acid secreted by the skin in order to make their way into the bones and feed on the nutritional oils within.
"The acid presumably allows the worms to release and absorb collagen and lipids that are trapped in bone," Martin Tresguerres, one of the researchers, said in a statement. "This model is remarkably similar to how mammals repair and remodel bone; however Osedax secrete acid to dissolve foreign bone and access nutrients."
The zombie worms use a "proton pump", which according to Tresguerres, secretes the bone-melting acid. Similar proton pumps are found in human cells, which help the kidneys in processing body wastes. These worms are also known to feed on other fish bones besides whale carcasses, which proves that the existence of these worms is longer than any other modern sea creatures, says the report.
Besides the fact that these bizarre creatures feed on whale bones, an even stranger fact is that these worms lack digestive systems. It raises a question as to how the creatures absorb the collagen and other proteins obtained after breaking down the bones.
In an attempt to explain this interesting phenomenon, Tresguerres and co-authors Sigrid Katz and Greg Rouse hypothesize that the zombie worms rely on symbiotic bacteria to metabolize collagen into other assorted organic compounds. The worms then consume the actual bacteria for their nutrition.
"The Osedax symbiosis shows that nutrition is even more diverse than we imagined and our results are one step closer in untangling the special relationship between the worm and its bacteria," Scripps postdoctoral researcher Sigrid Katz said in a statement.
The study was published in an online journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B.
