Predators play irreplaceable role in ecosystems

New research recently published in Oikos shows that predators play a unique and important role in ecosystems by creating "ecological hotspots"—localized areas important for plants and animals.

Huge blue whale washes ashore in southern Chile

An enormous blue whale, considered the largest animal on Earth, has washed up onto a beach in southern Chile, probably after dying at sea, local authorities said Sunday.

Researchers conduct whale fall studies in the South China Sea

In the late 1980s, scientists discovered that when a whale dies, its carcass sinks to the ocean bottom and a new ecosystem springs forth around the carcass. The carcass becomes a food source for this new ecosystem. A team ...

Dinosaur 'mummies' might not be as unusual as we think

A process of desiccation and deflation explains why dinosaur "mummies" aren't as exceptional as we might expect, according to a study published October 12, 2022 in the open-access journal PLOS ONE by Stephanie Drumheller ...

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Carrion

Carrion (from the Latin "caro", meaning "meat") refers to the carcass of a dead animal. Carrion is an important food source for large carnivores and omnivores in most ecosystems. Examples of carrion-eaters (or scavengers) include vultures, hawks, eagles, hyenas, Virginia Opossum, Tasmanian Devils, coyotes, Komodo dragons, and burying beetles. Many invertebrates like the burying beetles, as well as maggots of calliphorid flies and Flesh-flies also eat carrion, playing an important role in recycling nitrogen and carbon in animal remains.

Carrion begins to decay the moment of the animal's death, and it will increasingly attract insects and breed bacteria. Not long after the animal has died, its body will begin to exude a foul odor caused by the presence of bacteria and the emission of cadaverine and putrescine.

Some plants and fungi smell like decomposing carrion and attract insects that aid in reproduction. Plants that exhibit this behavior are known as carrion flowers. Stinkhorn mushrooms are examples of fungi with this characteristic.

The word carrion is often used in Danish mythology to describe animals that have been sacrificed and animals that have been killed due to the gods' fury.[citation needed]

Sometimes carrion is used to describe an infected carcass that is diseased and shouldn't be touched. An example of carrion being used to describe dead and rotting bodies in literature may be found in William Shakespeare's play Julius Caesar:

Another example can be found in Daniel Defoe's Robinson Crusoe when the title character kills an unknown bird for food but finds "its flesh was Carrion, and fit for nothing." A third example can be found in J. R. R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings in a footnote in Appendix A. The dwarves resort to a mass burning of the bodies of their dead following the War of the Dwarves and Orcs "rather than leave their kin to beast or bird or carrion-orc."

In Islam, it is forbidden to eat rotting meat.[7]

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