Herds of Mysterious ‘Glacier Mice’ Baffle Scientists
In 1950, Icelandic researcher Jón Eyþórsson got here throughout a gathering of fuzzy inexperienced puff balls, the dimensions of small gerbils, scattered throughout Hrútárjökull Glacier within the southeast of the nation. Curiously, the mossy balls weren’t hooked up to the bottom, and lots of have been inexperienced on all sides, indicating they have to slowly flip in order that the whole exterior sees the solar sooner or later, theorized Eyþórsson. That fall, he wrote a letter to the editor of the Journal of Glaciology. “I name these mossy balls Jökla-mýs, actually ‘glacier mice,’” he wrote, “and you’ll have famous, Sir, that rolling stones can collect moss.”
The time period “glacier mice” has gone on to befuddle people ever since. “I don’t just like the time period ‘glacier mice,’” says excessive mountain ecologist Scott Hotaling of Utah State College. “I noticed it and I used to be like, ‘Oh, these are precise mammals dwelling on glaciers.’ And that’s not even remotely what they’re.” Hotaling prefers “glacier moss balls.” “They’re nonetheless surprisingly cute and herd across the glacier collectively—they’re awfully neat in that method.”
No matter you name them, they’re cute and it seems, fairly complicated for scientists. Moss balls like these type round an irritant akin to a small rock or accumulation of mud, much like how a pearl types round a grain of sand in an oyster. Their pillowy our bodies are moss, by way of and thru. Whereas they’re thought of uncommon—they require an ideal mixture of glacier, moss spores, and substrate—they’ve been discovered, every so often, everywhere in the world, from the Himalayas to South America to Alaska. “They’re international however uncommon in all places,” says glaciologist Tim Bartholomaus at College of Idaho. Regardless of being a lot cherished by glaciologists and people fortunate sufficient to identify them, there’s rather a lot we nonetheless don’t learn about these mossy mysteries.
Beforehand unaware of the phenomenon, Bartholomaus got here throughout a colony of the moss balls whereas establishing analysis gear on Root Glacier in Alaska in 2006. “I used to be floored, and perplexed,” he says. In 2009, he and one other researcher tagged 30 of them—starting from hamster- to rat-size—with wire and glass beads, like friendship bracelets. For 54 days they tracked the balls as they moved slowly throughout the ice. They continued to verify on the moss balls all year long, and returned in 2010 and 2012 to see what the little herd was as much as. Hotaling, whereas he didn’t lay eyes on these particular fluff balls, helped with the info.
In 2020 within the journal Polar Biology, they reported that the balls slowly rolled in unison, up to a few inches a day, and will dwell for at the very least six years. The balls moved at about the identical pace, in the identical route, and adjusted route in coordinated style. The staff theorized, just like the few moss ball fanatics earlier than them, that the balls transfer as a result of they protect the ice beneath them from melting, inflicting them to finally roll off their icy pedestals. Whereas this has been noticed, that alone wouldn’t lead the balls in any single route.
The components that orchestrate their coordinated actions remains to be a thriller. Researchers tried explaining this phenomenon with incline, wind, daylight—however nothing fairly lined up. “We don’t actually know why they moved the best way they do,” says Hotaling. “My guess is there’s some mixture of issues taking place, like wind, photo voltaic radiation, and micro-topography on the glacier—like soften channels and little ridges that aren’t being captured in our examine. It was fairly the shock to not have the ability to clarify it with what we thought have been type of the one choices.”
Right now, the moss balls of Root Glacier are nonetheless round, says Bartholomaus, although he hasn’t completed an exhaustive search to see if any nonetheless sport their bracelets. In the meanwhile, nobody is on the case to attempt to remedy this cute inexperienced thriller. “No person’s lives depend upon this,” says Bartholomaus, “so it doesn’t actually transcend a type of curiosity.” Journey to glaciers is time-consuming and costly, each researchers level out, and whereas moss balls are fascinating, some issues are okay with somewhat thriller. “Scientists are skilled to clarify issues, usually with tons of caveats,” says Hotaling. “We not often simply say, ‘I don’t know.’” Whereas Hotaling would nonetheless like to analysis extra on moss balls, glacial researchers have extra urgent points.
Local weather change and melting glaciers will certainly have an effect on the moss balls—whether or not which means roughly, scientists can’t say for sure. Hotaling is extra involved with this larger image. “It’s probably not nearly glacier moss balls, says Hotaling, “it’s about this sort of whole system that’s going away and that we all know little or no about.”
Just like the deep ocean, high-mountain ecosystems are filled with mysteries, and every new discovery in glacial areas world wide might be as alarming as it’s thrilling. “Nobody might actually think about that glacier moss balls are a factor. The way in which they work and the best way they transfer in live performance, like somewhat herd on the glacier, that’s simply not one thing that I might have simply guessed was on the market,” Hotaling says. “For me, it highlights the final subject of local weather change and high-mountain and high-latitude ice, and that these locations are extraordinarily underexplored, and so they’re very understudied. It makes me marvel what else is on the market, and what else is being misplaced?”