Osedax

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{{Taxobox | color = pink | name = Osedax | regnum = Animalia | phylum = Annelida | classis = Polychaeta | ordo = Sabellida | familia = Siboglinidae | genus = Osedax | genus_authority = Rouse et al., 2004 | subdivision_ranks = Species | subdivision = Osedax frankpressi
Osedax rubiplumus
Osedax mucofloris }} The Osedax (zombie/bone-eating worms) are a genus of whalebone-eating siboglinids (deep-sea polychate worms), first discovered in Monterey Bay, California, in February 2002. They have no stomachs or mouths and digest whale fat and oils through bacteria. They have colorful feathery plumes that act as gills, and roots that absorb their nutrition. Between 50 and 100 microscopic dwarf males live inside the females. Although the males never develop past their larval stage, they contain large numbers of sperm.

Osedax is latin for "bone-eating". The three species discovered within this genus are called rubiplumus, frankpressi and mucofloris (snot-flower). The worms were discovered living in a decaying gray whale in the Monterey Canyon, at a depth of 2,800 m (9,100 feet) using the submarine ROV Tiburon. It was called a "zombie worm" and this name is sometimes applied to the entire genus.

In late 2005, an experiment by Swedish marine biologists resulted in the discovery of a species of another type of the worm in the North Sea off the west coast of Sweden. In the experiment, a minke whale carcass that had been washed ashore had been sunk to a depth of 120 m and monitored for several months. Biologists were surprised to find that unlike the previous discoveries, the new species, colloquially known as "bone eating snot flower" after its scientific name (Osedax mucofloris - a more accurate translation would be "slimeflower bone-eater") lived in very shallow waters compared to the previous discoveries.

Craig Smith, a researcher in Hawaii, suggests that about half of Osedax species died out when 90% of the whale population was depleted by hunting at the end of the 19th century.[1]

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