In what has to be one of the wackiest experiments so far this year, scientists have placed a dead alligator at the bottom of the ocean to see which fish will attempt to eat it.
Researchers from the Louisiana Universities Marine Consortium (LUMCON) placed two alligators at the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico in February 2019.
The experiment was carried out to understand how land animals impact ocean food webs.
Within 18 hours of dropping the first alligator, the researchers discovered at least a dozen giant isopods on the animal.
Speaking to Atlas Obscura, Clifton Nunnally, a researcher on the study, said: “Giant isopods are like deep sea vultures. They’re just hanging around, waiting for something big to fall down.”
And while you might think that gouging through alligator scales would be tricky, it appeared to be light work for the isopods.
The isopods focused on the weaker points of the alligator, including its armpits, underbelly and eye sockets.
The tiny creatures even managed to crawl inside the alligator, and eat the carcass from the inside out!
Aside from seeing which sea creatures are willing to eat alligator, the researchers hope the experiment will also shed light on deep-sea food webs more generally.
A statement about the experiment added: “It will also help us learn about deep-sea food webs more generally, including food webs that included now-extinct reptiles that lived in ancient oceans.
“Some species that eat these modern-day alligators may be new to science and their ancestors may have eaten ancient reptiles.”
The team will now resist the alligators to see if any sea creatures will attempt to eat the bones.
