Glacier moss balls, also called glacier mice or yokulmeis, are mysterious balls of (adorable) moss that are found in large groups on certain glaciers around the world. Here, we share their amazing story, their movement and survival rates, and more in a new paper published this month in Polar Biology.
Co-author Tim Bartholomaus also sums up this research nicely in a series of (viral) tweets! Twitter also provided us with a modified photo of our mossballs, courtesy of a science twitter fan, that included googly eyes. Enjoy!
Moss balls do not actually have googly eyes. But other than that, this photo (which is from our research) is accurate.