Posted on 07/31/2021 8:37:31 AM PDT by ProtectOurFreedom
Scientists are beginning to unlock the mysteries of glacier ice worms which are the largest organism on Earth that spend their whole life cycle in ice. "It's happening," scientist Scott Hotaling told a reporter for OPB as he gestured across Paradise Glacier high up on Mount Rainier in Washington.
He was referencing hundreds of thousands of tiny, black worms emerging from a vast expanse of white snow.
Ice worms were first discovered in 1887 on Alaska's Muir Glacier. They have since been spotted on most of the coastal glaciers in Alaska, British Columbia, Washington and Oregon. It was an exciting discovery because, for the longest time, biologists considered high-altitude glaciers sterile places where life was essentially impossible.
“I think they're like the mascot of mountain glaciers in the West," Hotaling told AccuWeather about ice worms. They're incredibly cool, they're incredibly abundant and they're the largest organism on Earth that spends its whole life cycle in ice. "When they're around, there are hundreds per square meter. You cannot walk without stepping on them...so, it's a very dramatic thing when they are present."
The inky, black ice worms are only about an inch long and are distant cousins to earthworms. Instead of dirt, these worms wiggle through glacial ice eating snow algae, bacteria and anything else that ends up on the snow.
They may spend their entire lives in snow and ice, but ice worms can't survive subfreezing temperatures. Hotaling has conducted thermal testing and says the ice worms can survive comfortably for at least a day or two in temperatures as high as 75 degrees Fahrenheit (around 24 degrees Celsius), and although they thrive at temperatures around 32 degrees Fahrenheit (zero degrees Celsius), they die when temperatures drop below that threshold.
(Excerpt) Read more at accuweather.com ...
The only thing worse than, “I’m from the government and here to help” but “It’s happening.”
Sam: I'm going fishing
Bill: You got the worms?
Sam: Yah,but I'm going anyway
What happened to the murder hornets?
Where's Heather and Burt Gummer when you need them?
They are probably tickled pink too, on the inside. 🙂
Write up a quick outline for a story and sell it to A24. They’ll make the movie.
Glaciers have been slowly melting since the ice age...
https://www.seagrant.wisc.edu/resources/the-formation-of-the-great-lakes/how-they-were-made/
from link:
Thousands of years ago, the melting mile-thick glaciers of the Wisconsin Ice Age left the North American continent a magnificent gift: five fantastic freshwater seas collectively known today as the Great Lakes — Lake Superior, Lake Huron, Lake Michigan, Lake Erie and Lake Ontario. From the westernmost tip of Lake Superior at Duluth, Minn., to the easternmost tip of Lake Ontario at Watertown, N.Y., lakes stretch a thousand miles across the heartland of both the U.S. and Canada, creating nearly 9,500 miles of ocean-like shores.
Snow works as an insulation...
OMG...Ice Worms on the loose...coming your way!
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And extremely hungry. This very slow growing organism is shown in the image in its larval stage. The gigantic adults, rivaling a T. Rex in size, are renown for their rapid attacks from camouflage concealment taking their prey down with razor sharp claws and fangs. Using its extended feeding tube, it sucks out the prey’s blood and other bodily fluids while the prey is still alive, having injected a paralytic venom before slowing eating the prey in its entirety. Note: the Ice Worm only eats living prey, dead or dying prey is avoided. The prey’s fear pheromones help in its digestion process.
And you thought the disappearance of the Mega Fauna of the Ice Age was due to some some comet strike or predation by humans ...
We are doomed.
“ So the tiny ice worm is the largest organism on earth?
Who writes this”
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This is exactly why they are so awesome!
it does seem odd that lower volcanoes still have their snowpack, and Rainier has lost one entire side.
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Oh oh - time to move at least several hundred miles away fast. When it goes, because it is so high, the magma has to reach enormous pressure to breach the top, forcing the entire mountain to blow - making St Helenes eruption look like a lady finger firecracker compared to a 5000 lb bomb.
that’s just its larval size ...
Shades of Tremors...
Thanks for that insight about Rainier versus Baker. I didn’t know that.
Remember several years ago when they learned that one of the Antarctic ice sheets was melting due to volcanic activity under the ice?
This caught my eye in the article you linked:
...women were not allowed to touch a man’s snow snakeI should say not! Unless invited, of course.
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