When a whale reaches the seafloor, one body becomes food, shelter, and habitat for an entire succession of deep-sea life. Follow the changing community from scavenging sharks and hagfish to bone-eating Osedax worms, and learn how field experiments revealed a temporary ecosystem that can last for years. Inside this episode: - Why a whale carcass is an enormous deep-sea food pulse - The changing stages of a whale-fall community - How Osedax worms reach nutrients inside bone - What deliberately placed carcasses taught researchers - Whale falls, carbon, fossils, and ecological connection Sources include Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute field reports, remotely operated vehicle observations, and peer-reviewed whale-fall research. This episode is a researched narrative summary. Historical records may be incomplete, translated differently, or in ...