14 DAY TRIAL // A team of researchers writing in today's online issue of the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B shed new light on the behavior of a bizarre worm species that thrives on whale bones.
The scientists explain how, once they come across a whale carcass, these worms use acid to drill holes into the animal's bones.
This allows them to access the collagen and the lipids locked inside the bones and feed on them. Due to the fact that these worms are both mouthless and gutless, they need help from bacteria in order to metabolize these nutrients.
Specialists suspect that the bacteria are the ones that metabolize the collagen and the lipids, and that the worms later on digest them.
Sources say that, once the feeding frenzy is done with, the worms use the bones as shelter.
This bizarre worm species is referred to by the scientific community as Osedax.