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(#10) Bacteria Breaks Down The Bones' Lipids
Whale bones contain a high amount of lipids. In fact, lipids make up about four to six percent of a whale's body weight. As the whale's body is stripped by scavengers, bacteria take on those lipids. As the microorganisms break down the bones, they produce hydrogen sulfide, ridding it of many of the previous inhabitants.
This phase can take a decade or more to complete.
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(#7) Roaming Scavengers Strip The Carcass
While the whale's body still has meat, a colorful array of scavengers will pick its bones clean. The vast corpse provides food for animals like sleeper sharks and hagfish. On average, these hungry wandering fish will eat hundreds of pounds of meat from the whale per day.
They can strip the body bare within a few months, though larger whales might take a few years to consume.
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(#4) The Body Might Float On The Water's Surface
Sometimes, the gas build-up in the whale's body can cause it to become buoyant. As long as the gas remains, the body will continue to float along the surface of the water. That makes it an easy target for scavenging fish and birds, who will begin to pick flesh off the body.
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(#1) The Whale Passes Away
Whales have an incredibly long lifespan; depending on the species, they can live for over 100 years. However, that life can be cut short by humans. Fishing, accidents, and pollution cause a large percentage of whale deaths.
Of course, whales can pass from natural causes, too. They may succumb to old age, or fall victim to their own bodies. Whales are susceptible to parasites, and they can cause fatal problems.
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(#6) It Becomes A Whale Fall
As bloating in the whale subsides, the body begins to slip beneath the surface, creating a "whale fall." The term refers to the body that is now drifting toward the ocean floor. If this occurs in the shallows, scavengers will prey upon the body almost immediately, and the warm waters will greatly speed up the decomposition process.
However, in deeper waters, the deceased whale decomposes at a slower rate. The body might sink all the way to the bottom before losing much of its flesh.
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(#3) Gasses Accumulate Inside The Body
The noxious gasses created during the whale's decomposition create airy pockets of CO2, methane, hydrogen sulfide, and ammonia within its body. This causes the whale to bloat dramatically, and builds very intense pressure - an estimated three to five atmospheres of it, in fact.
Often, the gas slowly leaks out through weak points in the whale's tissue, but it can also linger for some time.
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About This Tool
Whale Fall refers to the phenomenon that a dead whale sinks to the bottom of the sea. The carcass of a whale can support a circulatory system dominated by decomposers for a hundred years. This phenomenon, hydrothermal and cold springs are called the oasis of life in the deep sea. The dead whale occupies an important position in the marine ecosystem, and the whale fall ecosystem can be divided into 4 stages of evolution.
The formation and disappearance of whale falls are long for many creatures. The random tool introduced 12 details about what happens when dead whales sink into the deep ocean. The number of existing whale falls is much smaller than in the past. Some specific populations, such as gray whale populations, only have poor double-digit numbers in the Western Pacific.
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