Nature has spawned pretty strange creatures in its day from long-necked dinosaurs to the dodo. Another one of nature's weird children have been found by scientists, the bone-eating "zombie" worm. Traces of the zombie worm, Osedax was found on a 3-million-year-old fossil whale bone from Tuscany in Italy.

The find, published in the journal Historical Biology, proves that this strange zombie worm actually existed in the world's oceans 6 million years ago and was responsible for eating through the fossil record by munching on animal bones before they could become fossils. The Osedax worm actually does not have a worm or stomach but consume the bones with fleshy root tissues to slurp the nutrients. The tissues eventually dissolve the bones as they grow.

Evidence of the zombie worm was discovered by lead scientist Nicholas Higgs in the Meditteranean last year after scanning a whale fossil using computed tomography. The whale fossil had the tell-tale marks of a zombie worm attack, a distinctive bulb-shaped cavity left behind in the bone. Higgs recognized the cavity and concluded that the Osedax was widespread millions of years ago. The only other evidence of the Osedax was found in whale bones from the Pacific coast of Washington State in the U.S.

Lead scientist Nicholas Higgs discovered tell-tale traces of Osedax in the Mediterranean last year using micro-CT (Computed Tomography) scanning technology as part of his PhD at the University of Leeds and the Natural History Museum.

"So finding out that Osedax were feeding on this whale bone three million years ago tell us that their ancestors must have also been living in the Atlantic as well, because the Mediterranean was re-colonised 5.5 million years ago from the Atlantic," said Higgs.

The zombie worm was first discovered in 2004 munching on whale bones. Scientists are now only realizing that this worm could have been erasing the fossil history since it has existed millions of years ago.

The zombie worm isn't the only animal living in the dark recesses of the sea. Here are some other unapologetically weird creatures that live in the subterranean deep.