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The spotted-tail cave salamander (Eurycea lucifuga), a lungless salamander endemic to caves of the eastern United States Eurycea (of North America) and Speleomantes (of Italy and France) are two genera of lungless salamanders with so many individual species termed "cave salamanders" that the entire group is sometimes so designated.
The olm (German: ⓘ) or proteus (Proteus anguinus) is an aquatic salamander which is the only species in the genus Proteus of the family Proteidae [2] and the only exclusively cave-dwelling chordate species found in Europe; the family's other extant genus is Necturus.
The name 'cave salamander' can be confusing because the term is also used more generally to describe cave-dwelling salamanders. Despite its name, the cave salamander is much less cave adapted than other cave-dwelling salamanders like the olm or Texas blind salamander. Unlike the more cave-adapted species, the cave salamander is brightly ...
Caves that are close to the surface, such as lava tubes, often have tree roots hanging from the cave roof, which provide nutrients for sap-feeding insects. [ 1 ] [ 2 ] Other important food sources in underground habitats are animals being decomposed and bat guano , [ 3 ] [ 4 ] [ 5 ] that creates large invertebrate communities in such caves.
Eurycea longicauda, commonly known as the long-tailed salamander [5] or longtail salamander, [6] is a species of lungless salamander native to the Appalachian Region of the eastern United States. It is a " cave salamander " that frequents twilight zones of caves and also inhabits springs and surrounding forest.
This also leads to reduced sampling for study, which has led to some uncertainty in the taxonomic classification; some sources consider all species of Texas cave salamanders to be subspecies of the Texas salamander. Eurycea neotenes and Eurycea rathbuni also live in caves and eat small insects and spiders.
Rare plants can thrive where calcium-rich nutrients are abundant after rock erosion, and caves provide shelter to salamanders, frogs, bats and diverse populations of microbes.
Speleomantes, or European cave salamanders, are a genus of salamander in the family Plethodontidae, or lungless salamanders. It is one of two genera in the family to inhabit the Old World (the other being Karsenia ), with the remaining 250 or so species being found in North, Central and South America.