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A troglobite (or, formally, troglobiont) is an animal species, or population of a species, strictly bound to underground habitats, such as caves.These are separate from species that mainly live in above-ground habitats but are also able to live underground (eutroglophiles), and species that are only cave visitors (subtroglophiles and trogloxenes). [1]
In Pennsylvania caves were used by newcomers as homes for a long time, certainly half a century. They generally were formed by digging into the ground about four feet in depth on the banks or low cliffs near the river front. The walls were then built up of sods or earth laid on poles or brush; thus half only of the chamber was really under ground.
Troglomorphism is the morphological adaptation of an animal to living in the constant darkness of caves, characterised by features such as loss of pigment, reduced eyesight or blindness, and frequently with attenuated bodies or appendages.
Troglofauna and stygofauna are the two types of subterranean fauna (based on life-history). Both are associated with subterranean environments – troglofauna are associated with caves and spaces above the water table and stygofauna with water. Troglofaunal species include spiders, insects, myriapods and others. Some troglofauna live ...
Communications with the outside world only occur under special conditions such as floods and exceptional droughts. Where streams pass through caves or water seeps in, they commonly are important sources of nutrition. Trogloxenes are important to cave ecology, because they commonly feed outside and import material that serves as food when they ...
Subterranean fauna is found worldwide and includes representatives of many animal groups, mostly arthropods and other invertebrates.However, there is a number of vertebrates (such as cavefishes and cave salamanders), although they are less common.
Cave salamanders are found in Europe and the U.S., but only some of these (such as the olm and Texas blind salamander) are entirely aquatic. The approximately 170 species of stygobite fish, popularly known as cavefish , are found in all continents, except Antarctica, but with major geographical differences in the species richness .
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.