Osedax roseus is a species of bathypelagic polychaete worm that lives at abyssal depths and is able to sustain itself on the bones of dead whales.

Worms such as Osedax roseus make use of the bones when only the skeleton remains.

[2] This worm was first described from a whale carcase that fell to the seabed in Monterey Bay, California, settling at a depth of 1,018 m (3,340 ft).

These worms are sexually dimorphic, the male and female forms being markedly different.

Few of these will land close enough to a sunken carcase to be able to develop into adult worms.