What Happens To A Dead Body In The Ocean?
Via IFL Science:
According to TV mobsters, to be “sleeping with the fishes” is the worst punishment anyone can receive. There are many reasons that human bodies end up in the ocean, but they all have one thing in common: it is not entirely clear how scavengers in the ocean deal with them. In order to investigate how this decomposition occurs, a Canadian team deposited pig bodies into the Saanich Inlet over the course of three years and monitored scavenger progress with underwater cameras. The research was conducted by Gail Anderson and criminologist Lynne Bell of Simon Fraser University, and the paper was published in PLOS ONE.
Pig carcasses were chosen for this study because they are good approximations of a human’s gut microbe fauna, size, skin, and amount of body hair. In addition to studying how scavengers respond to terrestrial mammals, this research is also valuable to forensic scientists who can use the information to help solve crimes.
Here’s the video:
