近日，中国科学院深海科学与工程研究所彭晓彤团队报道了戴曼蒂纳海区一个530万年前的深海鲸落墓地。相关论文于2026年6月10日发表在《自然》杂志上。

鲸落是海床上生物多样性的绿洲，然而来自海洋中的鲸落记录至今仍然稀少且零散。

研究组报告在戴曼蒂纳海区（深度4,616–7,001米）发现了一个巨大的鲸落墓地，沿东南印度洋海底延伸约1,200 公里。该区域存在一个深层且大规模的堆积层，包含五个现代天然鲸落群落以及476个已记录的鲸类化石。

研究组揭示，这些鲸类遗骸承载着以蛇尾、蛀骨蠕虫和基于化能合成的双壳类为主的特殊群落，并且该区域的化石记录同时包含了现存和已灭绝的深潜喙鲸。同位素定年结果表明，该区域的鲸落至少自530万年前就已存在。这些发现重塑了人们对鲸落生态系统的边界和生物地理学的理解，并将某些深海海底确立为追踪鲸类在地质时间尺度上演化的化石档案。

附：英文原文

Title: A 5.3-million-year-old deep-sea whale necropolis in the Diamantina Zone

Author: Peng, Xiaotong, Zhou, Peng, Song, Xikun, Bianucci, Giovanni, Du, Mengran, Collareta, Alberto, Gao, Zhaoming, Xie, Tongtong, Teng, Mingyao, Leduc, Daniel, Mills, Sadie, Ta, Kaiwen, Li, Jiwei, Wei, Taoshu, Dasgupta, Shamik, Liu, Hao, He, Yuan, Xu, Wenjing, Liu, Shuangquan, Zhang, Hanyu

Issue&Volume: 2026-06-10

Abstract: Whale falls are biodiversity oases at seabeds1,2,3,4,5,6, yet their record from the oceans has remained sparse and fragmentary6,7. Here we report the discovery of a vast whale necropolis in the Diamantina Zone (4,616- to 7,001-m depth), extending about 1,200km along the sea floor of the southeastern Indian Ocean. This area has a deep and extensive accumulation comprising five modern natural whale-fall communities and 476 fossil cetaceans recorded. We show that carcasses host specialized communities dominated by brittle stars, bone-boring worms and chemosynthesis-based bivalves and that the fossil record in this area comprises both extant and extinct deep-diving beaked whales. Isotopic dating shows that whale falls in this region have occurred since at least 5.3million years ago. These findings reshape the understanding of the limits and biogeography of whale-fall ecosystems and establish some deep sea floors as a fossil archive for tracing cetacean evolution over geological time.

DOI: 10.1038/s41586-026-10546-z

Source: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-026-10546-z