The mysterious “glacier mice”

Jody Serrano

In some places around the world,you can find bright green balls of moss (苔蘚)scattered across glaciers.That picture is incredible all by itself,but what is truly incredible is that this colony of moss balls moves all at about the same speeds and in the same directions.

The glacier moss balls are commonly referred to as “glacier mice”.Each ball resembles a soft,wet and squishy (黏糊糊的) pillow of moss.Glacier mice aren't new and have been spotted in Alaska,Iceland,Svalbard and South America.Scientists have known about them since at least the 1950s.However,despite knowing that these mysterious glacier moss balls exist,scientists still have a lot to learn about them.One of the biggest questions is why the mice,which can live for at least six years,move the way they do.

The glacier moss balls moved together.The researchers tried to explain this strange phenomenon in many ways.First,they thought the balls had rolled downhill,but later found that they weren't going down a slope.Then,they thought the wind was blowing them in consistent directions.But when they measured the dominant direction of the wind,that didn't explain it either.

And finally,they considered the sun,which melts the ice and may make the glacier moss balls move,but the direction of incoming solar radiation didn't align with the direction which the balls were going in.The researchers still don't know why the glacier moss balls move the way they do.Bartholomaus said that he hopes that one day,future generations will “get to the bottom of these great mysteries”.

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What makes the glacier moss balls mysterious?