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Pages about the caves from 
Romania
and my personal gallery


The pages of friends from all over the world, go there to see what's hiding in the caves from back home.
Visit them: 

© Cristian Osan ASER 1999
the page about caves from Caras-Severin, Romania, with some nice pictures. Special, because there is the place where I'm coming. Thanks to 
Cristian "Fozzie" Osan for this one, please visit his galleries. 

Romanian Speleology HomePage

go here to see and learn about one unique cave in the world:

Movile Cave

a page by   Bogdan Onac

"...Ecology

When Earth's climate changed 5.5 million years ago, the area went from being tropical to temperate. The only animals that survived were those living in warm caves underground.

Movile Cave, is one of Earth's most unusual ecosystems, populated with invertebrates that have adapted -- through a process called troglomorphy -- to their underground prison. They have done this by:

Losing pigmentation

Learning to navigate blind

Surviving on bacteria and fungi that derive energy from the sulfide hot springs

beneath the cave. The predatory leeches, rare water scorpions, and other inhabitants of Movile Cave are similar to species found in deep sea vent communities. They depend on chemoautotrophic organisms (users of chemical energy) instead of the more usual photoautotrophic organisms (users of photosynthetic energy).

Forty-six species of terrestrial and aquatic invertebrates have thus far been identified to inhabit this ecosystem, of which 31 are of a previously unknown kind. The vast majority are anthropods belonging to the classes of Arachnida, Crustacea, Myriapoda, and Insecta. Eighteen aquatic species in the cave belong to the phyla Plathelminthes (flatworms), Nematoda (round worms), Rotifera (microscopic animals related to round worms), Annelida (segmented worms), etc. A blind leech, a snail, and a blind water-scorpion have also been identified.

The discoveries include grazers such as four species of isopods, or pillbugs, six

springtails, a millipede, and a bristletail. Among the new species of carnivores are two pseudoscorpions, a 2-inch-long centipede, a worm-sucking leech, four spiders, and a water scorpion..."

Read more and learn, from the original page, click anywhere on the text or pictures to go there.


More to come soon.
and remember, if you ever have the occasion to see this magnificent creatures of the nature, leave them where they belong.

 

follow the light, your journey has just begun...


Write some words, and if you want a link to your page added here, let me know.