A single dead whale nurtures its deep-sea landing spot for ages. Creatures of mind-boggling anatomy, ignorant of the concept of light, come to feed. Rattails. Hagfish. Isopods. They tunnel and gnaw and lick and suck and absorb until the fatty colossus is nothing but methane bubbles, spilled oil, and bone. Life doesn’t stop there. Bacteria gobble up the fat inside whale bones. This makes hydrogen sulfide. Which powers microbes. Soon the bones vanish beneath glittering carpets of worms, glowing bacterial mats of clams, mussels, snails, limpets. Hundreds of species over decades, centuries. At
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