Mediterranean fossil whale falls and the adaptation of mollusks to extreme habitats

The hypothesis that sunken carcasses of Mesozoic marine and Cenozoic whales acted as evolutionary stepping to deep-sea reducing habitats is underlain by the question whether vent-like, chemosymbiotic specialization fi rst evolved shelf depths. Fossil skeletons of large whales have long been from ancient shallow-water strata, but they have never been as a source of information on ecosystem development. present a study on a 3 Ma old fossil whale fall and a survey other Pliocene fossil skeletons to show that the associated biota dominated by heterotrophs, with subsidiary chemoautotrophs. taphonomy of the Mediterranean shelf whale falls shows some with respect to deep-water studies. Quantitative analyses abundance data within a large data set on fossil and modern families confi rm that deep- and shallow-water communities reducing habitats are composed of a different set of taxa, i.e., occurring only below the shelf break. Mediterranean sunken in coastal settings do not seem to be favorable the evolution of whale-fall specialists among the mollusks. The reverses as the shelf break is approached.