World-Record Mouse Discovery

Curt Bright Author

03/11/2020 Added

3812 Plays

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Nebraska biologist Jay Storz discovered a mouse species living at altitudes higher than any other mammal.

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[00:00:00.313](upbeat music)
[00:00:06.423]I was pulling my camera out here
[00:00:08.780]when a little vole appeared out of the corner of my eye.
[00:00:14.020]This Indian mountaineering team filmed a video
[00:00:17.600]of this mouse scurrying across an alpine snow field
[00:00:21.910]at just over 20,000 feet on the slopes
[00:00:24.570]of this volcano called Llullaillaco.
[00:00:26.890]The reason why that footage was so surprising
[00:00:29.030]is because no one expected mammals to be able
[00:00:32.170]to survive and function at such an extreme altitude.
[00:00:36.800]And that's what motivated us to go there
[00:00:38.600]and conduct a survey of mammals on Llullaillaco.
[00:00:43.250]It was a one-month-long expedition
[00:00:47.130]and it involved some friends and collaborators of mine,
[00:00:49.700]Marcial Quiroga-Carmona, and Guillermo D'elia.
[00:00:55.000]And then we also had a world-class mountain climber,
[00:00:59.230]Mario Perez Mamani, who's Bolivian.
[00:01:01.810]We started off surveying sites
[00:01:04.410]over a broad range of elevations
[00:01:06.610]to figure out what species existed in this general region.
[00:01:10.090]Because it's a very unexplored part of the world.
[00:01:12.620]The sites where we were trapping,
[00:01:13.670]we were gradually increasing in altitude
[00:01:15.270]because as we were conducting the survey,
[00:01:17.440]we were also acclimatizing ourselves
[00:01:20.230]in preparation for the really extreme
[00:01:23.050]high altitude portion of the expedition.
[00:01:25.500]And so after a couple weeks of trapping
[00:01:27.670]at kind of intermediate elevations,
[00:01:30.070]we then made our way to the volcano.
[00:01:32.290]We established a base camp at 16,500 feet,
[00:01:36.710]maintained trap lines there for over a week,
[00:01:39.890]and then also established a high camp at 19,500 feet,
[00:01:44.130]maintained trap lines there.
[00:01:45.980]And so as a result of this trapping effort,
[00:01:47.500]we have altitudinal records for numerous different species.
[00:01:52.080]And then Mario and I made a summit attempt.
[00:01:55.150]And so this is eight to nine hours of climbing
[00:01:57.950]to arrive at the summit.
[00:01:59.757](upbeat music)
[00:02:04.470]The goal of the expedition was to document
[00:02:07.270]the elevational range limits of the native mice there.
[00:02:10.260]And if we succeeded capturing any mice
[00:02:13.760]at the elevations where we were setting traps,
[00:02:16.020]it would definitely be a world record
[00:02:17.370]because no one expected mammals
[00:02:19.650]to be living at such extreme altitudes.
[00:02:23.728](speaking foreign language)
[00:02:28.900]And so when I first arrived there, on the summit,
[00:02:31.780]my friend Mario started telling me
[00:02:34.650]that he had just spotted a mouse,
[00:02:36.580]scurrying across the rocks, literally on the summit.
[00:02:39.620]Finally, it dawned on me what he was telling me,
[00:02:41.700]and so I quickly kind of came to my senses.
[00:02:44.760]Fortunately, my reflexes were still good enough
[00:02:46.930]that I was able to actually capture this mouse
[00:02:49.010]on the actual summit of Llullaillaco.
[00:02:50.040]So this was our world record mouse.
[00:02:53.373](mouse squeaking)
[00:02:58.850]The fact that there are mice
[00:02:59.840]living at this extreme altitude is really surprising.
[00:03:03.260]So just over 22,000 feet.
[00:03:06.140]So at that altitude, there's roughly 40% of the oxygen
[00:03:09.640]that's available at sea level.
[00:03:12.200]Temperatures are basically never above freezing
[00:03:14.370]and can drop as low as -60 Celsius.
[00:03:17.840]It's an extremely hostile environment.
[00:03:20.800]Given that the same species exists
[00:03:24.440]at these extreme altitudes and also
[00:03:26.330]its range extends all the way to sea level,
[00:03:28.360]one of the obvious questions is
[00:03:29.600]whether the mice living at the extreme altitudes
[00:03:31.880]have evolved specialized genetic adaptations
[00:03:35.140]to survive and function under those conditions
[00:03:38.160]and whether they differ genetically
[00:03:40.700]from members of the same species living at sea level.
[00:03:45.230]This discovery makes me think that
[00:03:47.270]we've underestimated the elevational range limits
[00:03:50.440]and physiological tolerances of animals
[00:03:52.800]simply because the world's highest summits
[00:03:55.830]are relatively unexplored by biologists.
[00:04:00.060]So there's a lot left to do.

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World-Record Mouse Discovery

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