Osedax

Osedax is a genus of siboglinid polychaetes, commonly called snot worms, bone-eating worms, or zombie worms. Osedax is Latin for 'bone devourer', derived from the worms' unique ecological niche of bone-boring. Osedax settle on a bone, then secrete an acid through specialized root tissues to dissolve the bone's external layers in order to access the lipids within. Osedax act as ecosystem engineers, enhancing the biodiversity of bones they inhabit by increasing their structural complexity, allowing microfauna to inhabit otherwise inaccessible regions of the internal bone.

Osedax

Robert C. Vrijenhoek, Shannon B. Johnson & Greg W. Rouse · CC BY 2.0 · via Wikipedia/Commons. May be a photograph of a specimen, or an artist’s reconstruction — an interpretation of a skeleton, since colour and soft tissue are almost never preserved.

On record

Recorded, not inferred
Sits inside
SiboglinidaePBDB
Diet
chemosymbioticPBDB, for Siboglinidae
Life habit
intermediate-level epifaunalPBDB, for Siboglinidae
Motility
stationary, attachedPBDB, for Siboglinidae
Vision
limitedPBDB, for Polychaeta

Time the record covers

At least 33 million years on record.

The record covers at least 33.9 Mya to 11.7 ka. No occurrence read is dated outside 37.71 Mya to 0 Mya.

Eocene — about 1 of 11 occurrencesEoceneOligocene — about 6 of 11 occurrencesOligoceneMiocene — about 0 of 11 occurrencesPliocene — about 2 of 11 occurrencesPleistocene — about 0 of 11 occurrences38–37 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences37–36 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences36–35 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences35–33 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences33–32 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences32–31 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences31–29 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences29–28 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences28–27 Mya — about 0.7 occurrences27–26 Mya — about 1 occurrence26–24 Mya — about 1 occurrence24–23 Mya — about 1 occurrence23–22 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences6.4–5.1 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences5.1–3.8 Mya — about 0.7 occurrences3.8–2.6 Mya — about 1 occurrence1.3–0 Mya — about 2 occurrences33.9 Mya11.7 ka38.5 Mya0 Mya

11 occurrences of Osedax on record, most of them in the Oligocene. The Paleobiology Database records this as a living group. Bar height is expected occurrences, not a count: each fossil is spread across the span it is dated to, so a tall narrow bar means tight dating and a low wide one means loose.

When

11 occurrences

These are dates about fossils, not the animal: the record can only begin after it arose and end before it died out, so either end may reach further. Shares are expected occurrences: a fossil dated to a span is counted partly in each period it straddles. More on what this infers.

Found in

4 formations

Pysht — 48.15°N, 123.86°WLincoln Creek — 46.28°N, 123.80°WLincoln Creek — 47.29°N, 123.52°WMakah — 48.29°N, 124.41°WBirket Qarun — 29.28°N, 30.04°E

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The named rock units Osedax has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 4 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.

Osedax and its relatives

Oligocene

Where Osedax and its relatives were recorded in the Oligocene.

Found in the same rock

89 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 10 sites for Osedax, and this reads all of them. The number is how many of those sites it was catalogued from too. The 24 sharing the most are listed.

This is not a list of everything alive at the time. It is only what has come out of the same ground as this animal and been written down.

Entered from

8 references

Each of the 11 occurrences read was entered from one of these publications, ordered by how many each accounts for. This is not a search for papers mentioning the name. Each entry links to doi.org. Relayed as the Paleobiology Database holds them, not checked against what they resolve to.

Media and terms

Media content2

Picture of Osedax

Credit
Robert C. Vrijenhoek, Shannon B. Johnson & Greg W. Rouse
Licence
CC BY 2.0
Commercial use
the licence allows it

3D model

Source
Sketchfab
Credit
piagoetz
Licence
CC Attribution-NonCommercial
Commercial use
the licence does not allow it

The description on this site

Licence
CC BY-SA 4.0

This is what the site found, which is not the same as what exists.

Keep going

What may have been alongside itSiboglinidae through timeFormations of the OligoceneThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Rouse et al. 2004