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Note: Zak Swartz, an assitant scientist at the MBL's Bell Center, was quoted in this story.

Columbo, eat your heart out: A team of scientists has just solved a massive marine murder mystery, nabbing the culprit behind the deaths of billions of sea stars over the past decade.

In a new study, researchers in the U.S. and Canada argue that the bacterial cousin of cholera is behind the epidemic. Through a series of experiments involving both wild and captive sea stars, they found evidence that Vibrio pectenicida is the likely cause of sea star wasting disease91�������הa devastating condition that causes the invertebrates to decay and essentially 91�������לmelt.91�������ם

The team91�������יs findings appear to be well supported with evidence, Zak Swartz, a biologist specializing in sea stars at the Marine Biological Laboratory who was not involved with the study, told Gizmodo.

91�������לThis study definitely passes the sniff test for me. It seems quite convincing that V. pectenicida bacteria are at least one causative agent of SSWS,91�������ם Swartz said. .