Chapter 10

Modern Cave Animals and Guests

Cajus G. Diedrich

Abstract

Today, some possibly endemic cave animals inhabit or use seasonally different parts of the cave system, which is still in use as a common fox den reaching hereby deeper cave parts of the lower cave system. Common cave spiders (Meta menardi) or moths (Triphosa dubitata) such as rare bats (Myotis myotis) use only the larger first two halls of the cave entrance area, whereas bats are rarely found for hibernation only deeper in the cave. In the middle part of the cave, water bodies of the speleothem terrace basins contain possibly endemic small crustaceans (Bath-ynella), in the mud infaunistic pigment and eye-less flatworms (Phagocatta) or on the water surfaces springtails (Heteromurus/Onychiurus), which species are not yet determined.

Total Pages: 175-179 (5)

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