Feeding on Whale Bones

Here's another report that I already shared on CRSnet (Creation Research Society found at www.CreationResearch.org

"Gutless Wonder: New symbiosis lets worm feed on whale bones"
found in Science News v. 166, 7/31/04, p. 68

I don't flatly claim, as some do, that any particular organism just can't possibly be "explained" by evolution, but I do think that the more examples of the amazing diversity of life that we see, the harder it is (or should be) to accept those explanations.

The critter described here (and formally reported on in the July 30th issue of Science) certainly is an extreme example.It was discovered in 2002, when a "remotely operated craft detected a dead gray whale in the mud at 2,800 meters underwater."

The bones were covered by these little things. One of the researchers "at first hesitated to identify the new creatures as worms." Similar ocean-bottom worms, like those that live near hydrothermal vents, "live in hard outer casings, yet the new creatures are sheathed in soft mucus."

The researchers were "convinced" by studying the DNA and later "found additional evidence ...from...morphological studies."

So, what are they like? Well, they don't have any mouths. The females have "hemoglobin-rich plumes" at the top end of "stalklike bodies." Within the "sheath that surrounds" this stalk (the entire body "can grow to the size of an index finger" live "More than 100 tiny males" which "don't appear to be parasitic and probably feed of yolk left over from early development."

One researcher says the males are "little more than larvae" and the size difference between males and females is "the most dramatic sexual dimorphism among worms and may be among the most dramatic in the animal kingdom."

But that's not the end of the weirdness! At the base of the females, the body swells with a number of relatively enormous ovaries in an irregular sack, and spreading out from this base are "green, rootlike growths" that are filled with "symbiotic bacteria."

Somehow these "bacteria-bearing projections penetrate the whale bones" and the bacteria feed on lipids in the bones, sharing the nutrients they derive from them with the worms.

A scientist commenting on this case for the article says, "I think there are a lot of discoveries to be made." Indeed. And they may be able to come up with explanatory stories for all of them, but how many such cases can we learn about and honestly expect such explanations to be valid?

Oh, you can see for yourself if you like: http://www.nature.com/news/2004/040726/full/040726-10.html Hmmm, that says "The researchers determined that the two new species diverged about 42 million years ago, which is about the same time that many whale species first arose. 'The implication is that these worms were doing this job on other whale bones quite some time ago,' says Bob Vrijenhoek, an evolutionary biologist from MBARI who is one of the authors on the paper."

But that would also mean the worms were able to do this about as soon as whale carcasses became available - did they evolve their special symbiotic form overnight, or were they already adapted to feed on the bones of....??? They don't seem to even consider this problem.

Until Next Time,
David Bump