Sea lice mob devours pig from the inside out

Sandrine Ceurstemont, editor, New Scientist TV

Finding a dead body in the ocean may be gruesome, but for forensic scientists it can also be perplexing. Although the way a body decomposes on land is well understood, little is known about how human remains fare underwater.

Now a pioneering experiment lead by forensic scientist Gail Anderson from Simon Fraser University in Burnaby, British Columbia, Canada, is using dead pigs as a model for humans to gain insight. In this video, a pig carcass is tracked as it turns to bones in the ocean, capturing the scavengers that visit the body. Sharks are unable to tuck in since it's enclosed (as is the octopus lurking at the end of the video), giving sea lice exclusive access to the remains. They enter orifices in droves to feast on the animal from the inside out and congregate on the cage bars to prevent other arthropods, like shrimp, from getting a bite. "By the end of the fourth day, the sea lice had left and the pigs were reduced to bones," says Anderson.

Shrimp arrive to pick at the skeleton, eventually removing all the cartilage. The team then recovered the bones which, strangely, were jet black for a period of 48 hours. "This is something that has never been seen before," says Lynne Bell, a member of the team. "Colleagues are working to identify the micro-organisms collected close to the bone, which may help to identify the unique chemistry of the change."

The pig carcasses are revealing for the first time how different conditions, for example depth and seasonal changes, affect decomposition in seawater. "We have had a lot of disarticulated feet wash up on our shores in running shoes," says Anderson. "This work is showing the public how crab and shrimp activity can result in severed limbs and that's it's a normal process."

For more gruesome details about body decomposition, read our feature, "Death: The natural history of corpses" or check out the rest of our special issue on death.

If you enjoyed this post, watch wild animals devour an elephant.

Source: http://feeds.newscientist.com/c/749/f/10897/s/24bd7d85/l/0L0Snewscientist0N0Cblogs0Cnstv0C20A120C10A0Csea0Elice0Emob0Edevours0Epig0Efrom0Ethe0Einside0Eout0Bhtml0Dcmpid0FRSS0QNSNS0Q20A120EGLOBAL0Qonline0Enews/story01.htm

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