rhamphotheca: The Olm, the Bliond cave...

18th January 2012

Photo reblogged from fauna with 134 notes

rhamphotheca:

The Olm, the Bliond cave Salamander That Lives to 100 Years
by Ed Yong
In the caves of Slovenia and Croatia lives an animal that’s a cross between Peter Pan and Gollum. It’s the olm, a blind, cave-dwelling salamander, also called the proteus and the “human fish”, for its pale, pinkish skin. It has spent so long adapting to life in caves that it’s mostly blind, hunting instead with various supersenses including the ability to sense electricity. It never grows up, retaining the red, feathery gills of its larval form even when it becomes sexually mature at sweet sixteen. It stays this way for the rest of its remarkably long life, and it can live past 100.

The olm was once described as a baby dragon on account of its small, snake-like body. It’s fully aquatic, swimming with a serpentine wriggle, while foraging for insects, snails and crabs. It can’t see its prey for as it grows up, its eyes stop developing and are eventually covered by layers of skin. It’s essentially blind although its hidden eyes and even parts of its skin can still detect the presence of light. It also has an array of supersenses, including heightened smell and hearing and possibly even the ability to sense electric and magnetic fields.

(sketch of the olm in an Austrian text pub. 1768 by Josephus N. Laurenti)
The caves of Slovenia and Croatia have provided the olm with safe haven for over 20 million years, but these unchanging habitats are changing quickly. Chemical pollutants leaching into the caves and the attentions of eager black market collectors have seriously hit the olm population, and it is now vulnerable to extinction. Scientists have risen to the challenge by setting up various “cave laboratories” throughout Europe to save and study this iconic species at the same time…
(read more: Wired Science) (top images: Arne Hodalič)

The Olm, the Bliond cave Salamander That Lives to 100 Years

by Ed Yong

In the caves of Slovenia and Croatia lives an animal that’s a cross between Peter Pan and Gollum. It’s the olm, a blind, cave-dwelling salamander, also called the proteus and the “human fish”, for its pale, pinkish skin. It has spent so long adapting to life in caves that it’s mostly blind, hunting instead with various supersenses including the ability to sense electricity. It never grows up, retaining the red, feathery gills of its larval form even when it becomes sexually mature at sweet sixteen. It stays this way for the rest of its remarkably long life, and it can live past 100.

The olm was once described as a baby dragon on account of its small, snake-like body. It’s fully aquatic, swimming with a serpentine wriggle, while foraging for insects, snails and crabs. It can’t see its prey for as it grows up, its eyes stop developing and are eventually covered by layers of skin. It’s essentially blind although its hidden eyes and even parts of its skin can still detect the presence of light. It also has an array of supersenses, including heightened smell and hearing and possibly even the ability to sense electric and magnetic fields.

(sketch of the olm in an Austrian text pub. 1768 by Josephus N. Laurenti)

The caves of Slovenia and Croatia have provided the olm with safe haven for over 20 million years, but these unchanging habitats are changing quickly. Chemical pollutants leaching into the caves and the attentions of eager black market collectors have seriously hit the olm population, and it is now vulnerable to extinction. Scientists have risen to the challenge by setting up various “cave laboratories” throughout Europe to save and study this iconic species at the same time…

(read more: Wired Science) (top images: Arne Hodalič)

Tagged: salamander

Source: rhamphotheca

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