On February 6, 2002, MBARI marine biologist Robert Vrijenhoek went looking for deep-sea clams in Monterey Canyon. Little did he know that he would stumble upon something that would change the direction of his scientific career. It was a dead whale, sprawled out on the seafloor. The dead whale was interesting, but what really got Vrijenhoek’s attention was what looked like red shag carpeting covering the whale bones. It turned out that the “shag carpeting” consisted of thousands of slimy, eyeless worms, lurking in the ocean depths and devouring the bones of dead animals.