Glacier Mices are mysterious forms of Moss plants that are present on the glaciers that provide microhabitat for various minuscule creatures.
Glacier Mices
Glaciers are the cold barrens parts of the land. They are considered hostile to life. Plants cannot grow on these barren cold bodies of ice. By hearing the name of glacier mice the first that comes in your mind might be a small rodent specie present in these harsh climatic conditions.
Glacier Mices are basically colonies of moss plants. Glacier Mices have been first documented in 1951. After that many researchers are doing research on them. These mosses also act as host for various nematodes and worms. Scientists are trying to figure out how these plants grow on such types of hostile conditions.
These glacier mosses are not found on every ice sheet but they are present on a few glaciers found globally. Scientists discovered that these mosses kept on rotating regularly. If the moss doesn’t move and comes in permanent contact with the ice it will not survive. With the extent of time, they become like moss balls and kept on rotating on ice surfaces. This movement exposes different surfaces of the moss balls to sunlight and also avoid permanent contact with the ice.
Glacier Mices provides a microhabitat for microscopic life. Inspite of harsh conditions temperatures below the ice surface is considerably warm. This temperature in the midst of so much freezing cold gives an exceptional environment to other microscopic life forms, minuscule creatures that we were amazed to find living on an icy mass. These included springtails (little creepy crawly like creatures), water bears (otherwise called tardigrades, the main creatures known to have made due in space), and roundworms.
All-inclusive, glacier mices are uncommon. Be that as it may, where they are found—in spots such Alaska, Svalbard, and Iceland—they will in general be rich, with thick gatherings of mice at times shaping on regions of the ice sheet. Be that as it may, environmental change may cut the presence of numerous glacier mice short.
