Fossils reveal brittle stars gathered around a dead whale 9.5 million years ago

Researchers identified a new species of brittle star, Ophiura huebnerjenseni, from fossilized remains found in a Danish clay pit.

The discovery provides the first fossil record of these marine animals associated with a whale fall, which is a carcass that sinks to the seafloor and provides a concentrated food source. Mette Elstrup and Trine Sørensen of the Museum of Southern Jutland collaborated with Ben Thuy from the Musée national d'histoire naturelle in Luxembourg and Lea D.

Numberger-Thuy from Dinosaurierpark Teufelsschlucht in Germany to study the find. They examined sediment collected during a 2018 excavation of a beaked whale's lower jaw and vertebrae at the Gram Clay Pit in southern Denmark. The team used scanning electron microscopy to identify the tiny skeletal plates of the brittle stars. The researchers found that the fossilized plates appeared only in samples taken directly next to the whale bones.

Because other fossils like sea urchin fragments appeared in all samples, the team concluded that the brittle stars likely lived on or near the carcass rather than being moved there by currents. The findings suggest that this ecological behavior existed during the Late Miocene period. The study indicates the site was a shallow-water whale fall where opportunistic animals gathered to feed on the carcass.

While the fossils do not show exactly what the brittle stars ate, the researchers believe they were generalist animals that lived on the seabed. The team named the new species after the founders of the Wacken Open Air heavy metal festival, whose event is famously associated with the same geological mud.