A fact from Osedax frankpressi appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page in the Did you know column on 2 December 2017 (check views). The text of the entry was as follows:
Did you know... that it appears that larvae of Osedax frankpressi that settle on a whale carcase develop into female worms, while those that settle on the female worms become males?
This article is within the scope of WikiProject Marine life, a project which is currently considered to be inactive.Marine lifeWikipedia:WikiProject Marine lifeTemplate:WikiProject Marine lifeMarine life articles
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"... It is probable that the presence of these bacteria, with their ability to metabolise organic material, that enables the worms to live on carcases." Surely the ability to metabolise organic material per se is rather unremarkable, and hardly the sort of thing an animal would need symbiotic help with. Perhaps some more specific ability was meant? Rotcaeroib (talk) 04:21, 2 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Although the whale remains are described as carcases, I think they are just skeletons at this stage and the bacteria are able to help the worms metabolise bony tissue. Cwmhiraeth (talk) 07:41, 2 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]
@Cwmhiraeth: I had to clear up that ambiguous passage in the article. The source itself is not clear either, I had to crib from the Main Page's DYK entry that specified it is larvae which becomes male when settling on female worms. It was clearer before your edit, and the most likely interpretation of the source, but it's too bad we don't have something more explicit. 2600:8800:1880:C359:5604:A6FF:FE38:4B26 (talk) 04:35, 2 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]
