{"id":842334,"date":"2026-08-03T18:20:14","date_gmt":"2026-08-03T18:20:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/842334\/"},"modified":"2026-08-03T18:20:14","modified_gmt":"2026-08-03T18:20:14","slug":"it-requires-chilly-temperatures-of-0-%cc%8ac-to-survive-if-exposed-to-the-balmy-warmth-of-4-4-%cc%8ac-their-membranes-dissolve-and-they-will-melt-into-goo","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/842334\/","title":{"rendered":"It requires chilly temperatures of 0 \u030aC to survive. If exposed to the balmy warmth of 4.4 \u030aC, their membranes dissolve and they will melt into goo"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Did you now there are some worms that can live in ice? Ice worms can be found living in ice in Alaska, Washington, Oregon and British Columbia. These dark brown or black relics of the last <a href=\"https:\/\/www.discoverwildlife.com\/animal-facts\/ice-age-animals\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">ice age<\/a> grow to about 2cm in length and wiggle to the surface of glaciers in the morning and evening to feed on pink snow algae.<\/p>\n<p>Closely related to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.discoverwildlife.com\/animal-facts\/insects-invertebrates\/facts-about-earthworms\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">earthworms<\/a> and leeches, these cold-loving creatures are the only annelids that spend their entire lives in glacial ice, travelling up to 3m per hour on crampon-like bristles. It is not yet known whether they tunnel inside glaciers by discharging some kind of chemical, or by squeezing through microscopic fissures. <\/p>\n<p>Ice worms require chilly temperatures of around 0 \u030aC to survive. Special antifreeze proteins prevent them from becoming \u2018wormsicles\u2019, and they are able to overwinter deep inside snow-insulated glaciers. If exposed to the balmy warmth of 4.4 \u030aC, their membranes dissolve and they will melt into goo. <\/p>\n<p>Meet more strange worms<\/p>\n<p>Main image: Ice worm \u00a9 Southwick3, CC BY-SA 3.0 <a href=\"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by-sa\/3.0\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by-sa\/3.0<\/a>, via Wikimedia Commons<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Did you now there are some worms that can live in ice? Ice worms can be found living&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":842335,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[64,63,128,338],"class_list":["post-842334","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-wildlife","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-science","tag-wildlife"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/842334","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=842334"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/842334\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/842335"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=842334"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=842334"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=842334"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}