It's
done in the name of research, but it's also done in the name of
tradition. Scientists tend to taste what they are studying. After all,
Charles Darwin dined on all she species he described in his works. In
the case of marine biologists, that means some exotic seafood. Peter
Girguis and his colleagues ate tubeworms specimens.
"We
just took off a little piece and ate it raw," said Girguis, a professor
at Harvard University. "It had the texture of hot dogs with match heads
ground in," he said. Living next to hydrothermal vents that spew toxic
water rich in heavy metals and sulfuric acid gives the worms an odd
flavor. "If it weren't for the sulfur, who knows, they might even be
tasty," Girguis told LiveScience.
Why would Girguis even try a
tubeworm? A long-standing marine biology mantra holds that scholars
should taste their species of study ... or at least waste not, want not.
"It's been a tradition to eat animals that we study," Girguis said. "I
figured that if we're going to drag the poor creatures up, I might as
well leave no tissue to spare."
This practice is not
limited to living animals. Frozen mammoths and bison, toxic plants,
million-years-old water, rocks, and insects are all known to have been
sampled by scientists.
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