An arctic mystery
Rutgers-Camden professor spends his summer searching for ice worms in Alaska
Archived article from Sep 29, 2000
By Caroline Yount
Glacial ice may have sunk the Titanic, but it seems to have a soft spot (or spots) for ice worms. Though the worms, which resemble pieces of dark thread, don't have eyes or even eyespots, they're somehow able to navigate on glaciers, easily burrowing through hard ice each day and returning to the surface at night.
How? Why? It's a mystery. Scientists first observed and began to study ice worms in the 1880s, but little is known of their unusual ability to penetrate ice, their reproductive behavior, response to environmental stimuli or life cycle. In fact, no research has been published on the animal since the early 1970s.
One reason for this is the worms' natural habitat -- they are the only known annelid, and among only a handful of animals, that completes its life cycle in glacial ice, an environment that does not deviate significantly from zero degrees Celsius.
But this did not deter Daniel Shain, an assistant professor of biology at the Camden campus, who spent two months in Alaska over the summer -- camping on glaciers -- to learn more about the ice worm.
While many of his questions about ice worms will be explored in the lab, Shain did discover some things about the creatures this summer. First of all, they're in no danger of becoming extinct. Shain estimates that several hundred million occupy some glaciers and the animals have few predators, maybe an occasional bird or two. "They seem to be at the top of the food chain," he observes.
As for their eating habits, ice worms apparently graze on a reddish algae that grows on glaciers and other wind-blown organic matter. For tiny creatures, the ice worms have very big mouths, says Shain, who specializes in the molecular and developmental neurobiology of annelids. "Their mouths are as big as the worms are wide."
It's generally known that the animals respond to light and temperature, and follow some type of circadian rhythm. But Shain wants to know what the worms do in the winter, when their glacial homes are covered by hundreds of feet of snow.
In order to collect his specimens for research, Shain traveled close to 6,000 miles, visiting about 15 of Alaska's estimated 100,000 glaciers. A grant from the National Geographic Society helped support his research trip. "It's not a trivial matter getting onto a glacier," Shain comments dryly. Getting to some required a two-day hike, others a boat ride and one, a ride on a historic train that followed the original route of prospectors seeking treasure in the Klondike Gold Rush of the 1890s.
Unlike the Rush of 1898, though, which brought more than 100,000 adventurers from all over the world stampeding toward the Yukon, Shain's trip tended to be more solitary. Two Rutgers-Camden students joined him for a couple of weeks, and he met quite a few people along the way, including a hospitable park ranger who let Shain stay in his cabin (with no running water) for one particularly rainy week.
But most nights, after observing and collecting the tiny worms, Shain would camp out on the ice. Many Alaskans he met, including staff at state parks, thought he was nuts. "Ice worms are a myth," he heard again and again.
This didn't surprise him. In fact, when he first read about ice worms close to five years ago on a place mat at an Alaska eatery -- not a particularly scientific or scholarly source -- Shain thought the creature was no more than a tinier local version of the Loch Ness monster.
In time, however, he discovered that the creatures are real.
While not mythical, the animal remains mysterious. Now, with his specimens carefully stowed in a mini-refrigerator in his office, he can begin to unravel their mysteries.
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