IUBio

Terrestrial ice worms

Sam James sjames at mum.edu
Fri Nov 28 17:25:00 EST 1997


At 11:27 PM 11/17/97 +0000, you wrote:
"....... Ice and Glacier worms - where I read that 
>on the Malaspina Glacier large numbers of a small black worm, 
>Mesenchytraeus solifugus "appear on the surface about four o'clock in the 
>afternoon, moving sluggishly about ... but when the sun [once more] 
>appears in the morning they again burrow into the snow" (hence the 
>solifugus presumably!), and that Mesenchytraeus solifugus var 
>rainierensis, "abundant on the higher snowfields and glaciers in early 
>summer, evidently passes its entire existence, generation after generation 
>in the snow and ice. ... The snow on which it is found has a red colour, 
>due to a minute unicellular alga, which may serve as the food of the 
>worm." 
>
>If anyone has the details of recent citations for glacier worms or 
>knows more about what they do in their rather extreme environment I'd be 
>interested to hear from them.
>


rainierensis would be one from Mt. Rainier, in the Cascades range of
Washington State, USA.  

Robert W. Service, famous poet of the Yukon Gold Rush, penned the
immortal Ballad of the Ice-Worm Cocktail, about an initiation ritual
involving the consumption of one Mesenchytraeus solifugus in an alcoholic
drink served in a rough saloon somewhere in the frozen north.  The
Harriman expedition collected a lot of these critters, now preserved at
the Smithsonian Inst. There is one in a small glass case at the Portage
Glacier visitor's center in Alaska.  I have eaten the red snow, which
tastes a bit like watermelon. Maybe the worms like it too.  

I realize this does not help, but thought you might be interested.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
~  Sam James                ~
~  Dept. of Biology         ~
~  Maharishi Univ. of Mgmt. ~
~  Fairfield, IA 52557      ~
~  sjames at mum.edu           ~
~  515-472-1146             ~
~ Systematics and Ecology   ~
~ of Earthworms             ~
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


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