the carcasses. Various studies on smaller cetaceans and other marine vertebrate food falls come to similar conclusions that these falls bring a large amount of new organic material to depth, but support mostly a scavenger community, as opposed to the diverse assemblage seen at whale falls. This conclusion can be drawn based on the knowledge that large whales have much higher lipid content in their bulk composition and bone marrow, which supports the diverse communities present in succession at whale falls. Researchers have compared sauropod carcasses to modern whale-fall events, recognizing that sauropods reached the size of modern cetaceans. Sauropod carcasses may have been energy rich reservoirs, and because they did not float great distances, may have been the primary resources of many terrestrial carnivorous dinosaurs. See also Deep sea communities Marine snow Detritivore Jelly-falls Whaling Osedax Carbon sequestration Deep-sea wood References External links Smith and Baco 2003 paper on whale fall ecology (University of Hawaii) Article from NOAA's Undersea Research program (NURP) Robin Meadows, "A Whale of a Tale" (Science Daily), University of California, Berkeley, "Fossil Whale Puts Limit On Origin of Oily, Buoyant Bones In Whales" 14 September 2007 Animal death Aquatic ecology Whales