Watch Deep-Sea Creatures Feed on a Whale That's Been Dead for Over 20 Years

One whale’s unfortunate death can be an entire ecosystem’s blessing, recent research shows. A large international team of marine researchers monitored the seafloor surrounding the corpse of a whale that had sunk 4,920 feet (1,300 meters) deep in the waters near Vancouver Island, Canada. Over a 15-year-long span, and probably longer, the whale sustained a rich community of deep-sea life, they found. The researchers expect that the whale will continue to be an ocean buffet for years to come. Scientists first began to document the appearance of whale corpses along the deep ocean floor in the 1970s—a phenomenon known as a whale fall. The sheer mass of a whale that sinks to the bottom of the ocean can provide a sudden burst of bountiful resources to the area. And the usually cold temperatures and high pressure found in the ocean depths allow the whale to stay intact far longer than it would had it died in shallower waters. The dead whale still goes through varying stages of decomposition, which benefits different types of life. At first, opportunistic scavengers will feast upon the soft tissues of the whale, usually picking it clear within months. After that, creatures will live off the