Ice Worm
Ice worms are species of the genus Mesenchytraeus, and represent the only annelid worms known to spend their entire lives in glacial ice. They include Mesenchytraeus solifugus, M. harrimani, M. kuril, M. maculatus and M. obscurus.
The first ice worms species were discovered in 1887 in Alaska, on the Muir Glacier. These glacier ice worms can be found on glaciers in Alaska, Washington, Oregon and British Columbia. They have not been found in other glaciated regions of the world. The name "solifugus" is Latin for "sun-avoiding," as ice worms retreat underneath the ice before dawn. Enzymes in ice worms have very low optimal temperatures, and can be denatured at even a few degrees above 0 °C (32 °F). When ice worms are exposed to temperatures as high as 5 °C (41 °F), their membrane structures disassociate and fall apart (i.e., "melt") causing the worm itself to "liquify." Ice worms are several centimeters long, and can be black, blue, or white in color. The ice worms come to the surface of the glaciers in the evening and morning. On Suiattle Glacier in the North Cascades population counts indicated over 7 billion ice worms on that glacier alone.
It is not known how ice worms tunnel through the ice. Some scientists believe they travel through microscopic fissures in ice sheets, while others believe they secrete some chemical which can melt ice by lowering its freezing point, like an antifreeze. They feed on snow algae.
Read more about Ice Worm: Ice Worms in Culture
Famous quotes containing the words ice and/or worm:
“He was high and mighty. But the kindest creature to his slaves—and the unfortunate results of his bad ways were not sold, had not to jump over ice blocks. They were kept in full view and provided for handsomely in his will. His wife and daughters in the might of their purity and innocence are supposed never to dream of what is as plain before their eyes as the sunlight, and they play their parts of unsuspecting angels to the letter.”
—Anonymous Antebellum Confederate Women. Previously quoted by Mary Boykin Chesnut in Mary Chesnut’s Civil War, edited by C. Vann Woodward (1981)
“The worm artist
out of soil, by passage
of himself
constructing.
Castles of metaphor!”
—Denise Levertov (b. 1923)