If you ever visit a glacier, there’s a chance you might see some small balls of moss scattered across the ice. These are called ‘glacier mice’, and they have a mysterious habit of rolling around in groups.
Glacier mice are shaped like fuzzy squashed balls, but they don’t have a particular top or bottom. They roll across the ice – just a couple of centimetres each day – which helps the moss on every side get enough sunlight to survive. This in turn provides a (relatively) warm environment where tiny critters like springtails and tardigrades can be found.
Scientists recently tracked a group of thirty glacier mice in Alaska. They found that all the balls rolled together in the same direction, like a herd of animals. Even weirder, their movement wasn’t related to a downhill slope, the wind or even the position of the Sun. Strange as it seems, we simply have no clue what causes glacier mice to roll.
Lachlan Writes Science 