Fragments From Floyd

Don't you know the person who got to name this new species just giggled. Literally translated, the latin name given to a newly discovered worm off the coast of Sweden -- Osedax mucofloris -- means just what the title of this post says.

"They look like flowers poking out of the whale bone. The analogy goes a bit further because they have a root system that goes into the bone," Dr Glover, a researcher at London's Natural History Museum, told the BBC News website.

The specialized niche for this new species discovered off Sweden is the same as that of far-removed and much deeper living worms: whale skeletons on the ocean floor. They absorb the oils and fats from the bone with the help of symbiotic bacteria, and are related to similar creatures found only in the deep sea hydrothermal vents.

There are still so many things we haven't yet learned about our planet. Makes me wish I could start my professional life over again--as a tropical pharmacologist, a benthic invertebrate specialist, or a digital cartographer. But then again, there are more and more times I'm perfectly happy to be an armchair explorer, gaining breadth of appreciation from the comfort of my ergonomic office chair while the younger folks do all the heavy lifting.