There are millions of these animal species around the world, and despite their abundance, they have hardly been studied.
When researcher Peter Wimberger from the University of Puget Sound (USA) first heard about the ice worm, he thought his colleagues were playing a prank on him. However, he was genuinely surprised to learn that these creatures not only exist but also hold numerous mysteries that, if unraveled, could help answer one of the biggest questions in science.
Ice worms have been discovered at Paradise Glacier in Washington. These tiny creatures can easily be mistaken for a thread or simply go unnoticed due to their extremely small size.
Image of ice worms.
Scott Hotaling, a glaciologist from Washington State University, along with his colleague Peter Wimberger, has been studying ice worms for several years.
As their name suggests, ice worms live in cold environments, typically glaciers, hiding within the ice and snow. Hotaling jokingly remarked that if one had to choose a mascot for glaciers, there would be no better candidate than the ice worm.
Unlike humans, who expend energy in frigid environments, ice worms thrive in cold weather, and their energy levels increase at lower temperatures. They are comfortable at 0 degrees Celsius, but if the temperature drops just a bit lower, they will die.
Ice worms feed on snow algae and bacteria, but according to Scott Hotaling, they do not require much food.
“I have kept them in the refrigerator, at home, for physiological experiments, for a year or more, without needing to provide anything for them to eat, and they are still fine,” Scott Hotaling said.
As distant relatives of earthworms, ice worms exist in layers of cold water within the ice and reproduce in frozen water. For most organisms, especially cold-blooded creatures like worms, living in glaciers is entirely impossible. When this organism was discovered, scientists were astonished and wondered: How can they survive and reproduce in such a freezing environment?
Daniel Shain, a researcher at Rutgers University in the USA, remarked: “Understanding how these organisms endure extreme environments could help us learn more about the limits of life on Earth and beyond.”
According to biological laws, as temperatures drop, reactions in the body slow down, and energy decreases. While warm-blooded animals must burn energy to keep their bodies warm, cold-blooded organisms become sluggish or even inactive when it is too cold. The way ice worms function contradicts this.
Shain noted that the energy levels of ice worms increase as their surrounding environment becomes colder. This could be considered a scientific paradox.
All of this is due to a special molecule known as ATP (adenosine triphosphate). ATP plays a crucial role in energy formation within cells and transmits energy for most reactions in the body.
ATP is produced by an enzyme called ATP synthase, which is found in almost all living organisms. However, during evolution, the ATP synthase in ice worms has acquired an additional DNA. This helps increase the rate of ATP production, making ice worms abundant in energy.
According to Shain, it is difficult to explain this evolution. Scientists suspect that the worms have “stolen” DNA from fungi. However, this is also quite unusual because stolen DNA typically does not match the new organism’s body.
Additionally, the cells in ice worms allow for ATP production when temperatures drop. These two changes combine to give this organism a much higher concentration of ATP in its cells compared to most other organisms in freezing environments.
Scientists believe that these mysterious organisms could reveal how life can exist in extreme environments and thus address the mysteries of potential life on colder planets like Mars. However, their future is threatened as glaciers are melting worldwide, including in the Arctic. Researchers say that if ice worms do not adapt to the changing world, they may face extinction.
Hotaling now questions whether ice worms could be the reason why glaciers are melting so rapidly. Meanwhile, it is believed that the presence of dark algae may accelerate melting, and furthermore, the dark bodies of the worms could absorb heat, thus contributing to this process.
