Hiding in the sun, the caves have always maintained a sense of mystery, in fact, this underground world is equally wonderful, the unknown world in the way of survival that we do not know, in their paradise evolved a variety of unique adaptive characteristics.
On August 21, a team from the Chengdu Huaxi Entomological Museum entered a huge undeveloped cave several kilometers deep in Longmen Mountain, Sichuan Province, and conducted a scientific expedition to cave biology. It has been four years since the june 2014 expedition. The expedition not only took rare photos of cave hook shrimp courtship in China, but also a large number of cave creatures were also captured by the camera.
Zhao Li, director of the Huaxi Insect Museum, said that caves are far from our daily lives, and people's impressions of caves are often dark, damp, silent and mysterious. Cave expeditions, on the other hand, explore a completely dark, unknown environment, which is a huge challenge for human beings to fear the dark nature.
Spiders don't tie webs, all rely on "empty gloves white wolves"
In the cave for generations of cave dwelling, the spiders here have also developed a skill, compared with their peers in the outside world, they have entered the era of "wireless network", "the spiders in the cave do not weave webs, hunting insects are more direct." Zhao Li told the Chengdu Business Daily reporter that the spiders in the cave dug out small circular holes in the soft calcareous sediments of the cave wall, and ambushed them inside, waiting for the opportunity to catch small creatures such as Ma Lu passing by.
In addition to spiders, there are occasional moths on the cave walls, which do not respond to light and do not evade. Zhao Li said that in addition to the ulnar moths and nocturnal moths that are often found in other cave scientific expeditions, the expedition also photographed the rare moths of the borer family in caves. "They move near bat droppings where fungi are grown, and their larvae feed on fungi." Zhao Li speculated.
Transparent Ma Lu 's internal organs' "internal organs" can be seen clearly
During this expedition, the expedition team found that in addition to the cave inhabited by a large number of burrowing bats such as the Martei-headed Bat. The species of invertebrates is even more diverse. The team members entered the cave for tens of meters, and on the four walls of the cave, they saw three or three or two orthoptera insects, sichuan commonly known as "archback" zebra horse activity.
Although this kind of cave spotted stove horse looks not much different from the species outside the cave, Zhao Li found that they have no visual function, and they have no response to the irradiation of the hand electricity, which is completely different from the similar species that only move outside the cave at night and immediately avoid the light as soon as they see it. The deeper you go into the hole, the lighter the color of these zebra horses, and the antennae gradually lengthen. After entering the cave for two or three hundred meters, their color has changed from dark brown near the mouth of the cave to light brown, and the antennae have increased from about 6 times the length of the body to nearly 10 times. Apparently, the structure of their bodies has gradually changed to adapt to environments ranging from low light to complete darkness.
Zhao Li said that in the depths of the cave, some new species that are very different from the outside of the cave have emerged, and after hundreds of meters of depth, the expedition team found a transparent malu at the bottom of the cave that is completely different from the brownish red or black brown counterpart outside the cave. This malu body is colorless and transparent, as if it were a work of art made of glass, and only a black digestive tract can be seen in the center of the body.
Zhao Li speculated that because there were no plants used for photosynthesis in the cave, the source of organic matter for living organisms could only rely on organic matter carried by water on the ground to enter the cave or the feces pulled out by bats inside and outside the cave. As for the reason why its body does not use color, there is no light to stimulate it to produce pigment cells, so their colors gradually disappeared over the long process of evolution.
Rare hook shrimp courtship photo Of creatures outside the cave "uprooted"
The most valuable photographs of the expedition were the scenes of courtship of cave hook shrimp. In the puddles where cave hook shrimp was previously found, the expedition team found that cave hook shrimp still live in it. While observing, I unexpectedly found several pairs of cave hook shrimp courting - this small white transparent animal swims sideways quickly and irregularly in a narrow puddle, and when the male and female meet, they quickly "wrap" together.
Zhao Li said that hook shrimp belong to the endpod hook shrimp family, distributed all over the world, most species of marine life, there are also some freshwater species, and shrimp and crabs are a class of crustaceans. They originally lived outside the cave, and after being carried into the ground by the current, they could not leave, so they lived in this small puddle for generations.
Over the course of its long evolution, like Malu, it lost its ability to produce pigment cells and became a transparent species. This cave hook shrimp is only about a centimeter long, which is very different from the shape of our common shrimp, without a fan-shaped tail and long antennae, no pigment in the body, almost transparent, not even eyes, looking like an alien creature in a science fiction movie.
They do not swim on their backs like most aquatic animals, and most of the time they move sideways in cave puddles. There have been no previous reports of how they courted inside the cave. Due to the hook shrimp swimming rapidly in the water, the photos taken this time are not very clear, but they are still precious.
The cave ecology is fragile And external disturbances will be destroyed
Caves are isolated from the rest of the world, and it is almost impossible to connect the creatures deep in the caves with the creatures outside the caves and between the caves, so the cave species are very unique. Zhao Li said that the caves in the world that have undergone biological research can find a new species on average in one hole, and "one kind of mountain, one kind of hole" is very common.
Invertebrates such as insects in the underground cave system in the Chengdu area have rarely been studied in the past, so in addition to the hook shrimp and ruler moth species found in the last expedition, the newly discovered transparent malu and other species are most likely to be completely new species. The expedition team has taken samples of invertebrates such as insects and water found in the cave, preparing to further study the life of cave creatures.
Zhao Li particularly emphasized that the cave ecosystem is relatively closed, and there are very few species in it, and because the type and quantity of food are very poor, most of them grow slowly, the number of reproduction is small, the ecological balance is very fragile, and the minimal external interference will change the stable environment in the cave, so that the organisms that have adapted to the cave environment for a long time face the disaster. The creatures in a cave are often unique, that is, they only exist in a certain cave, and once extinct, there will be no replacement.
He said that the domestic awareness of the environmental protection of the cave is relatively weak, the cave commercial development is also more, the relevant reports confirm that generally after the commercial development, the cave of frequent human activities, the organisms in it will suffer disasters, which is related to air composition, water source, temperature, light changes and other factors.
Zhao Li said that the specific location of the inspection site will not be announced, because this cave is still in a primitive state, once the curious explorers enter the sightseeing in large numbers, it may be that the cave creatures discovered this time will be completely extinct after a few years, and even more species will not be known to the world.
Chengdu Business Daily client reporter Eun Xiaohuai The picture is provided by the Huaxi Entomological Museum
Edited by Tang Huan