'Glacier mice' baffle scientists

This gives Racetrack Playa vibes - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Racetrack_Playa

They eventually discovered that the playa would occasionally flood, then freeze at night, trapping the rocks in the ice, and wind would then push the ice sheets with the rocks embedded, which would cause the tracks that gave the area its name.

Like a glacial tumbleweed made of moss. This is wonderful!

Moss is one of those things that is tricky to eat, but very rewarding if you find the right species and know what you’re doing! Fluffy goodness

> “Nobody’s lives depend on this,” says Bartholomaus

it would actually be pretty cool to see glaciers covered in greenery rather than have them melt away into nothing, maybe more of these things would be helpful

it unironically sounds like a climate initiative cultivate and mutate these to be faster growing, especially given that they seem to shield the ice beneath. what a neat substrate for a plant

>The factors that orchestrate their coordinated movements is still a mystery.

I'd propose that the path of the sun biases the mice's movements in the same direction, since the ice in their shadows will be colder.

Frozen marimo?

reminds me of Scavenger’s Reign

> In 1950, Icelandic researcher Jón Eyþórsson came across a gathering of fuzzy green puff balls, the size of small gerbils, scattered across Hrútárjökull Glacier in the southeast of the country. Curiously, the mossy balls weren’t attached to the ground, and many were green on all sides, indicating they must slowly turn so that the entire exterior sees the sun at some point, theorized Eyþórsson. That fall, he wrote a letter to the editor of the Journal of Glaciology. “I call these mossy balls Jökla-mýs, literally ‘glacier mice,’” he wrote, “and you will have noted, Sir, that rolling stones can gather moss.”

> [...]

> Glacier moss balls can grow up to about eight inches long before they fall apart, and can live at least six years. The one on the right was tagged with beads by researchers.

Today in nominative determinism: Glaciologist Tim Bartholomaus studies glacier mice.

Tumblemoss

You think they'd put a youtube video in the article..... to show.. ya know.. the movement

I don't know why but this article felt like a LLM hallucination.

Rolling moss gathers no stones.

Is this any different than the sailing stones of death valley?