Xác ướp chuột bí ẩn được tìm thấy trong điều kiện giống sao Hỏa trên đỉnh núi Andes

So how did a species of leaf-eared mouse (chuột tai lá) make this barren land (vùng đất cằn cỗi) their home?

That is the question a team of scientists from Argentina, Chile, Bolivia and the United States are looking to answer after discovering 13 mummified (xác ướp) mice at elevations (độ cao) above 6,000 meters (19,685 feet) in the Atacama Plateau of Chile and Argentina. Their discovery further proves the species is the world’s highest dwelling (sống, cư trú) mammal, according to the study recently published in Current Biology.

The mice, called Phyllotis vaccarum, are commonly found living in the Andes mountains at lower elevations, all the way down to sea level. In 2020, a living mouse was recorded at the summit of Llullaillaco, a volcano (núi lửa) with an elevation of 6,739 meters (about 22,110 feet) on the border (biên giới) of Chile. It currently holds the world record for highest living mammal,

The discovery of the living mouse spurred (thúc đẩy) Storz to conduct expeditions (cuộc thám hiểm) at 21 different volcanoes. The 13 mummified mice were found on the Salín, Púlar and Copiapό volcanoes.

On the summit of these volcanoes, each breath of air (hơi thở) only contains about 40% of the oxygen that is available at sea level,. The temperatures also rarely rise above freezing, and the wind forces are extremely strong, once recorded at over 116 miles per hour from a National Geographic weather station at 6,505 meters (21,342 feet).

Furthermore, the environment has been described to be Mars-like. In 2021, NASA researchers had studied the environment in efforts to “understand how the building blocks of life might respond to Martian conditions over time,".