Dungeons and Dragons (and a little bit of a sea)

  There's a mysterious animal, lurking just a several hours of drive from the lively coast of the Gulf of Trieste, in the dark dungeons of carstic caves, deep under the foggy forests of the Slovenian alps. Tales of this creature are told all around  the large corner of Europe: from Croatia to Austria, flom Slovenia to Italy. This animal was prominently featured in the first complete naturalistic and historical account of  Slovenian lands, Janez Vajkard Valvasor's “The Glory of the Duchy of Carniola (1689)”. Author  was describing olm, the dragon of the depths, mighty and terrifying, unseen by mortal man. Only at spring, when rivers, flowing through the carst were full of melt waters, Olm's offspring - subtle, pale , blind creatures, hardly half a meter long, can be seen washed away from the caves.While olm, and other worm-like dragons are inhabiting only central-european mythology, "olm's offspring" is a totaly different thing. 

  

  This bizarre blind salamanders, sometimes called "man-fish" in English, are totally real, they actually were the first real cavernicolous animals (troglobites) ever described scientificly...

1768, doctor and scientist from Wien - Nicolaus Laurenti- has described an unusually amphibian- a blind, depigmented salamander, with bright red external  gills,which he called Proteus anguinus- european proteus. This description laid a milestone of what has become a science of life under the earth - speleobiology. Since 1768 there's a bunch of books and papers written about biology  and unique adaptations of proteus to his long, slow life in the darkness of the caves, and quite excl lent summary of this literature can be found here: http://amphibiaweb.org/species/4229, and this is not my point to re-tell the stunning history of studies and numerous discoveries on proteus biology.

The point is to share a short illustrated note on my personal small pilgrimage to the "dungeons with dragons"- Postonjnska jama -cave in Slovenia, the most accessible among the all places on Earth where one can see proteus.... (Most of photos of this journey are by  Valentyna Inshyna).

 One of the best thing about being a fellow of Marie Curie research and training project "Interfaces" (you can learn more about project,and what we are doing here ) it is that you are actually able to travel to awesome places, to meet awesome people and all this normally called "business trip".

...Here we go: the best European ecohydrological minds united at the "Interfaces" meeting in Piran, Slovenia

 One of my more recent business trips was to Slovenia, to the mid-term report of the "Interfaces" project. Meeting was held at the Slovenian Marine Biological Station at Piran (which is basically THE Slovenian Adriatic coast). Despite boring name, meeting has inspired number of exciting scientific discussions. And on the top of it all, Piran was generously providing us with enormous amounts of sun, sea, excellent food and gorgeous scenery...

 The most caught and most eaten european marine crayfish- Nephrops norvegicus-common scampi.

Sampling microplancton in the gulf of Trieste.

Sunset ower the gulf of Trieste.

And on the topof that all, Piran is in posession of the only bed-and -breakfest for cats i am aware off. Whats not to love?!

That's what i always believe is the most important institution in every town!

But despite the all gesture of Piran, it was time to head home, and we decided to use the proximity of Slovenian coast to town of Postojna, to actually visit famous Postojna cave, and finally see the proteus in the eyes (which he basically don't have in adult state -what an irony!).

Town of Postojna, view from the train station.

After a short pleasent train ride through the Slovenian mountainous forests we have reached Postojna - an lovely small town. which is a sort of a sacred place for specialist in cave biology all over the world. An it is not only because of proteus.

Postojna cave isahome for Leptodirus hochenwartii - the first specialised cavernicolous insect ever described, the description of L. hochenwartii started scientific explorations of the Postojna cave, over 150 years ago. Discovery of this small beetle is also helped to launch speleobiology inti the mainstream of biological science. Before this beetle all cavernicolous animals - even proteus - were treated rather as curious exceptions. Leptodirus hochenwartii and his "godfather"- austrian entomologist Ferdinand Schmidt, have helped to change the perception. Exciting history of this discovery and its significance for the development of cave's biology can be find in excellent paper by Slavko Polak.

 That's a best picture of famous Leptodirus hochenwartii i personally get during my visit to Postojna, that was a pretty big one, almost 30 cm :D

Slovenian institute of carst in Postojna...

... and first proteus we saw right on the institutes's wall!

Pivka river- the main architect of the Postojna cave

Stares to the cave entrance.

Proteus is mentioned everywhere....

.... and pretty commercialised.

Nowadays, in contrast to Ferdinand Schmidt's time,journey to the caves is not perilous at all and can be made partially by electric train system, partially by foots, and all the way down you are enjoying incredible scenery of the underworld.

More proteus at the entrance to the cave.

I told 'ya - proteus is everywhere!

Nice, large Tipula sp. female - those craneflies are often troglofilous -meaning they like to dwell in cave, but not as a permanent residence. Troglophilles do not process special adaptations to the cavernicolous live, like real cave-dwellers: troglobites.

Cave "landscapes"

Climbing a slippy metall stairs in the Central hall of the cave.

Carbonates in the seepaging water are accumulating for thousands years to create this magnificent forms.

Caves were artificially expanded in order to accommodate the pedestrian passages and the rail.

 Stalagmite "Brilliant" is the symbol of the Postojna cave

 Then, after 2 hours of the excursion in the cave, i finally up to see my first proteus!No the "wild" of course, in order to see an proteus in natural habitat one would require to have a spelaeological training and immense patience. For those who don't have neither of it (i.e. for me) there's another way to see an olm: at the hall of the rail station, which takes the visitors back to the cave exit, there is a tank, about 10000 litters, which accommodating about 20 animals. I was stunned, and, to the surprise of other visitors, bring myself to the knees in order to better see olms, crawling at the bottom of the tank. Mysterious white shadows finally came to me in the flash and blood! I've only got about five minutes with proteus, as our train was about to take us to the exit (duration of the excursion is strictly fixed), which has really upset me, together with the fact that other visitors don't seems to pay much attention to magnificent animals...

Immediately after exiting the cave we headed to the Vivarium - small separate cave, which was first used as biological lab, to study living troglobites, and now is used for displaying of the live representatives of unique fauna of Postojna cave. Vivarium is housing about 20 species of troglobites, including  L.hochenwartii, number of endemic cavernicolous mollusc's, spiders and gammarid shrimps

But the main attraction is, of course, proteus, its scaled-up model (3:1) meeting the visitors near the entrance.

There's a two big tanks in the centre of the room, housing four proteus. I spent about an hour standing there, and watching their slow, reluctant movements. I finally met the dragon from the dungeons, and it was small, and it was subtle and fragile and yet- magnificent. Looking at the slow dance of long, white salamanders in aquarium i was thinking how vulnerable they are. 

Amphibians in general, and Caudata amphibians (newts, salamanders and axolotls) are unlucky bearers of the dubious title "the most endangered class of vertebrates", as over 40% of all amphibians considered to be endangered according to IUCN. With the emergence of the new menace - salamander-killing fungi called Batrachochytrium salamandrivorans European newts and salamanders are in grave danger now. Proteus is might be safer than other species - due to its unique habitat, but ultimately, it is up to us to ensure, that dungeons will still have their dragons. Otherwise "the lost frogs (and newts)" list might become a little bit longer...