Off the glide of California , the ocean bottom is scattered with idle squids that perished after an tiring splurge of training and egg - laying . It may seem strange , but it ’s a central part of this corner of the sea ’s interrelated food webs .
The sight was first see in 2012 by researchers at Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute who have recently write a newspaper , published in theProceedings of the Royal Society B , about the uncovering .
In a serial of remotely operated submarine dives , the team weigh over 60 dead squid some 1,000 meter ( almost 3,300 foot ) deep in the Cerralvo Trough , a deep catchment area near the southern end of the Gulf of California .
Along with these squid carcasses were empty squid bollock sheets , thin soft membranes created by distaff deep - ocean squids to carry their thousands of offspring . This led the researcher to trust that all of the squid are females that have been smothered by their own egg sheets .
Within a 24-hour interval , all of this mess is normally hoovered up by scavenger , which include a variety of ratfish , acorn louse , brickly asterisk , sea cucumbers , crustaceans , and sea stars .
“ Whale carcasses on the bottom might last in some form for decades . But we do n’t know anything about midsize carrion such as squid carcasses , ” brain life scientist Henk - Jan Hoving notice in astatement . “ You have to get very lucky to see one – they probably get waste within 24 hours . ”
fortuitously , the egg sheets remain undisturbed , ensure that the eggs hatch and the squids did n’t reproduce in vain . Other subject have suggested that calamari really shoot ink into their egg flat solid , have them hard to see and less tasty for scavengers and bacterial decomposers .
This all - you - can - eat snack counter also help to order the midwater zone of the sea by speeding up a operation acknowledge as the " biologic pump " . The calamary eat up solid food in the midwater zona and sink , taking carbon paper to the seafloor . However , climate change and overfishing are currently bed with the marine environment , causing Pisces stock to decline and squids to expand their range . Although this means thesquid population could boom , it could alter the delicate correspondence of carbon in the inscrutable .
“ In this instance , the squid may die almost simultaneously , so there may exist pulses of beat calamary falling to the seafloor , ” added Hoving . “ This could have a big impact on the biologic atomic number 6 heart . "
