Cave life |
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Caves are home to many different life forms. Often they also contain fossils that tell us about what lived in the cave in the past. This broadens our knowledge of caves and animals. Fossils In Naracoorte, Victoria, a farm manager stumbled on some caves whilst looking for lost sheep in 1845. They found a chamber in the cave filled with fossils. It contained 93 different species including : frogs, turtles, snakes, lizards, birds, echidnas and a marsupial lion. Bats Caves are home to many species of bats. Bats are omnivores. There are fruit bats which drink nectar and eat fruit to survive and there are some bats that eat mice and bugs. There is even one type of bat that bites humans. Some bats that live in caves are endangered or rare such as the Bulmer's fruit bat ( Aproteles bulmerae ) from Papua New Guinea.Until 1970 this bat was only known from its fossil remains. There are two unusual things this bat can do: firstly it can hover and secondly it can fly backwards. The Carlsbad Caverns in New Mexico USA are home to about half a million Brazilian free-tailed bats and in the evening around 5000 bats per minute fly out to catch insects.The Bat Cave is a place for the bats to give birth and raise young, as well as a stopover for migrating bats. Amphipods Amphipods are crustaceans that have very compressed bodies. Their name means different footed because their legs range in size from 1 mm to 240mm. Amphipods and other little crustaceans and creatures eat guano also known as bat droppings. The bat's excrement falls to the floor after a meal and forms food for the amphipods. Living in the Dark Caves such as the world heritage Mulu Caves in Borneo have a variety of unusual creatures that live in the permanent darkness. These include huntsman spiders, scorpions, translucent crabs and white snakes. Other creatures that live in the dark in caves are glowworms. These are the larvae of fungus gnats ( a type of small fly). The larvae hang from sticky threads on the cave ceiling and walls. They produce light to attract other insects which they eat. A famous cave where you can see glowworms is Glowworm Cave on the Waitomo River in New Zealand. |
Bat eating a centipede |