(ORDO NEWS) — Every year in the summer, strange worms appear on the glaciers located in the Cascade Mountains, the length of which reaches 2.5 centimeters.
Experts believe that each such glacier may contain up to five billion worms. Many who have visited the mountains do not even suspect that such a huge number of animals live in them.
Reported by Oregon Public Broadcasting.
Few people know about worms because they appear only in the evening and only in summer. Despite the fact that there are a lot of them, scientists have still little studied this species. Therefore, no one can accurately name what provokes their regular appearance on the surface.
Although worms live in glaciers, they cannot tolerate temperatures below zero Celsius and begin to die. No one knows how they survive in the winter, but when they first appear in the summer, they are much fatter than they were before.
Biologists believe that in the cold season, worms are actively involved in the accumulation of energy. Experts suggest that they use bacteria and special snow algae as food.
It is worth noting that the researcher kept these worms in his refrigerator for a year and noted the fact that they live normally even without food. In turn, these animals are food for birds that live in the Cascade Mountains.
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