7 ms·

I have found a video (under a minute long) of a backpacking group walking through a herd of glacier mice in Alaska: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v4fHfDrfoJw

I have found a video (under a minute long) of a backpacking group walking through a herd of glacier mice in Alaska: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v4fHfDrfoJw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v4fHfDrfoJw. I'd love to see a timelapse of glacier mice moving.

Aboutplants 18d ago
I’m actually surprised there isn’t Timelapse of it already. Seems like a simple enough setup to gather basically all of the information needed for finalizing how they move.
- madaxe_again 18d ago
  We have something similar where I live - no glaciers involved though, just river rocks. The river dries up rapidly in the summer, leaving the smooth exposed bedrock riverbed peppered with rounded river rocks covered with drying algae. Where the river is partially shaded, the rocks rapidly grow moss and other vegetation on their top surface. They preserve what little precipitation there is, and catch the morning dew. They grow top heavy, and fall over. They then repeat this on the next upwards facing surface. Meanwhile the downwards facing surface dries out from the radiant heat from the bedrock and shrivels into a thin black layer of desiccated biomass, which then partially falls off at the next rotation, further increasing the top-heaviness. Over the course of a summer, the rocks all collect themselves into the local low-points of the river bed. Then comes the flood and the cycle repeats.
  - Aboutplants 18d ago
    I saw a YouTube video of a professor explaining this exact thing as an explanation for these Glacier Mice. There is a whole lot of biomass that is shifting on those balls, driving by access to sunlight which in turn causes the response you explained above. Makes a lot of sense to me!
andrewflnr 18d ago
If you put me on that surface I don't think I would have any idea it was a glacier.
perilunar 17d ago
> "The use of accelerometers has demonstrated that glacier mice do in fact rotate and roll, rather than simply sliding across the ice You would think a timelapse video would also demonstrate that, and be much simpler to set up.

Aboutplants 18d ago

I’m actually surprised there isn’t Timelapse of it already. Seems like a simple enough setup to gather basically all of the information needed for finalizing how they move.

madaxe_again 18d ago
We have something similar where I live - no glaciers involved though, just river rocks. The river dries up rapidly in the summer, leaving the smooth exposed bedrock riverbed peppered with rounded river rocks covered with drying algae. Where the river is partially shaded, the rocks rapidly grow moss and other vegetation on their top surface. They preserve what little precipitation there is, and catch the morning dew. They grow top heavy, and fall over. They then repeat this on the next upwards facing surface. Meanwhile the downwards facing surface dries out from the radiant heat from the bedrock and shrivels into a thin black layer of desiccated biomass, which then partially falls off at the next rotation, further increasing the top-heaviness. Over the course of a summer, the rocks all collect themselves into the local low-points of the river bed. Then comes the flood and the cycle repeats.
- Aboutplants 18d ago
  I saw a YouTube video of a professor explaining this exact thing as an explanation for these Glacier Mice. There is a whole lot of biomass that is shifting on those balls, driving by access to sunlight which in turn causes the response you explained above. Makes a lot of sense to me!

andrewflnr 18d ago

If you put me on that surface I don't think I would have any idea it was a glacier.

perilunar 17d ago

> "The use of accelerometers has demonstrated that glacier mice do in fact rotate and roll, rather than simply sliding across the ice You would think a timelapse video would also demonstrate that, and be much simpler to set up.