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A whale fall is the carcass of a cetacean that has fallen into the Bathyal or Abyssal zone on the ocean floor.〔 As they are found at depths of , they create complex localized ecosystems that supply sustenance to deep-sea organisms for decades.〔 This is unlike in shallower waters, where a whale carcass will be consumed by scavengers over a relatively short period of time. It was with the development of deep-sea robotic exploration that whale falls were first observed in the late 1970s.〔 Organisms that have been observed at deep-sea whale falls include giant isopods, squat lobsters, bristleworms, prawns, shrimp, lobsters, hagfish, ''Osedax'', crabs, sea cucumbers, and sleeper sharks. == Discovery == The earliest indication that whale carcasses could host specialized animal communities occurred in 1854 when a new mussel species was extracted from a piece of floating whale blubber. By the 1960s, deep sea trawlers unintentionally recovered other new mollusc species including limpets (named ''Osteopelta'') attached to whale bones.〔 The first recorded abyssal whale fall was discovered by Navy bathyscaph pilots Lt Ken Hanson, ETCM(SS) George Ellis and LT Tom Vetter diving in bathyscaph Trieste II (DSV-1) on 19 February 1977 (at ). The skeleton of the carcass, which was completely devoid of organic tissue, remained intact and collapsed flat on the seafloor. The submersible recovered a jawbone and phalanges. The whale was considered to be a gray whale based on the size of the bones and the skeleton, the lack of teeth and its location west of Santa Catalina.〔 Another whale fall was discovered accidentally by a team of marine biologists led by University of Hawaii oceanographer Craig Smith in 1987. The DSV Alvin identified the remains using scanning sonar at in the Catalina Basin.〔 Other whale falls have since been found by more researchers and deep-sea explorers as well as naval submarines. The increase in detection is largely due to the use of cutting-edge side-scan sonar which can minutely examine the ocean floor for large aggregations of matter. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Whale fall」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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