Brine pool ecosystems

(Question in highlighted text)

So, the chances are that you've heard of brine pools, which form when methane erupting from the seabed expose ancient salt deposits - the concentrated salt mixes with the water and forms brine, which, being heavier than water, forms large pools in the deep sea.

Sometimes, animals enter the brine pools and all that salt gives them "toxic shock", and they die if they can't escape. Many videos of brine pools feature many washed-up corpses on the pools' shores, so I was wondering;

Could some kind of sessile organism evolve to feed solely on victims of toxic shock?

Primarily, what kind of anatomy or body plan would be suited to doing this? Would excess salt from the embalmed corpses need to be expelled somehow, like marine iguanas do?

Edit: an example of an eel getting toxic shock: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZwuVpNYrKPY

posted about 6 years ago

SealBoi‭

9 reputation 73 0 1 0