As temperatures warm coastal glaciers, hundreds of thousands of ice worms are emerging from the snow on Mt. Rainer’s Paradise Glacier.
That’s right…Ice worms.
AccuWeather reports ice worms were first discovered in 1887 on Alaska’s Muir Glacier, ice worms are the largest organism on Earth that spends its entire life cycle in ice.
About one-inch long, and distant cousins of the earthworm, these worms dig through glacial ice, eating snow algae, bacteria, and anything else that may end up on the snow, although they are paradoxically unable to survive sub-freezing temperatures.
While it is presumed their inky-black appearance helps them to absorb UV rays, they’ve barley been studied.
However, NASA has taken recent interest in the worms, searching for clues as to how life thrives in extreme environments.