Do they vanish? Do other fish eat dead fish?
What about sharks and whales?
In: Biology
Other sea creatures would eat them. Just like hyenas, jackals, and vultures will clean a carcass on land. Sharks, sea stars, crabs, they would all take the opportunity to get some food if they come across it.
In the ocean? Everything is something’s next meal.
Marine biologists love finding a dead whale carcass down deep. It’s a feast for all kinds of marine life. You can study so much in one place for weeks on end.
Everything gets consumed. It’s like how you walk through a forest but almost never find bird, squirrel, rabbit, or deer skeletons. Nature doesn’t let much go to waste.
They fall to the sea floor and are eaten by the scavengers. Such as crustaceans and isopods. Whalefalls in particular can support a whole ecosystem
You know the saying “there is always a bigger fish”? Well, when the fish die many times there are smaller fish and other sea creatures that will feed on the bodies. It all goes back into the cycle.
What happens to dead *anything*?
They are eaten by scavengers and microorganisms, just like everything.
They get eaten, or they sink to the bottom, and then get eaten
It’s not fish or sharks, but there is a cool phenomena called “Whale Falls” where when a dead whale sinks down to the deep parts of the ocean where there is not light at all, it gets absolutely swarmed by deep sea life, crabs, eels, starfish, everything, and acts as this beacon of food for months until it is reduced down to just bones.
It depends on how they acted when they were alive. They may either go to fish heaven or fish hell.
They get eaten. “Free meal? Im there!”
Not a fish, but still a marine animal… or the remains of one. Check out [whale falls](https://youtu.be/l7t1WguYJyE?si=v8ytq9rgrkPfhx1E). It really doesn’t take long for a dead *anything* in the ocean to completely disappear.
There are animals that are specified, on land and sea, as “scavengers.” They’re great at eating road kill and other dead stuff. It saves a carnivore a lot of energy to not have to kill its prey if it waits for something else to kill it. And there’s a whoooole lot of scavengers in the animal kingdom. Not to be confused with “decomposers, which in turn are not to be confused with “detritivores.” Those guys do the, well, decomposing.
If it’s got nutrients, something’s gonna eat it. Unless there’s some crazy conditions. Like the cold and lack of oxygen of Mount Everest making ice mummies out of dead climbers or the man-made mummies of Egypt. There’s also fossilization, but even then fossils are rare, as the dead thing needed to be covered in sediment very quickly, like a tar pit or mud/landslide, volcano, etc.
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