The caves of the Ozarks are home to many sorts of cave life. Our damp, constant temperature conditions make ideal homes for many cave adapted species.

Cave animals are usually divided into four groups:

• Cave accidentals, or animals which wander in, but not on purpose;
• Trogloxenes, or cave users;
• Troglophiles, or cave lovers;
• Troglobites, or cave dwellers.
• Some systems include phreatobites or dwellers in spaces too small for man.

Although caves many seem like sterile places when compared with the surface, this is definitely not the case. From the many species of microorganisms, some of which are still unidentified, to the more well known bats and salamanders, most Missouri caves are anything but lifeless. Life underground is much different because it is not plant-based at first glance. Nearly all food must come in from the outside. Most cave animals are scavengers for food--so little of it occurs underground that nearly anything might be considered lunch. But how comfortable an animal is underground, and where they get their food helps to define any animal as a member of one of the four main types.

• Cave accidentals are animals which either have become trapped or are disoriented in the dark underground. They would starve very fast if left there for any length of time. Some examples are turtles, surface fish, snakes deep in the cave, and most mammals which do not den underground.

• Trogloxenes are animals which occasionally go into caves, and may even use them for part of their life, but which get their food from the outside. Bats, mice, bears, raccoons, some cats, frogs, some salamanders and some insects like crickets are examples of trogloxenes.

• Troglophiles are cave lovers. These animals seem equally adept at living and finding food inside or outside of the cave. They may be partly cave adapted, but not so much that they would find life outside, under proper conditions, unbearable. Cave salamanders, sculpin and springfish are examples of troglophiles.

• Troglobites are completely cave adapted. They have evolved so that life outside the cave would be very difficult. These are the blind, white creatures whose metabolisms can operate at a slow rate for many lean years and are mostly omnivorous. Cavefish, cave crayfish, millipedes, spiders, and other strange crustacea and invertebrates are troglobites.

• There is some evidence that troglobites migrate through rock spaces too small for humans, and that is the reason that some of the more cave adapted water troglobites may be referred to as phreatobites--from the phreatic zone, the place beneath the water table.

  Of note in Missouri are two (possibly three) known species of federally listed as endangered bats: the Indiana bat Myotis sodalis, the gray bat Myotis grisescens, and perhaps the Ozark big-eared bat Plecotus townsendii ingens. We have two troglobitic cavefish, the federally threatened Ozark cavefish Amblyopsis rosae, and the Southern cavefish Typhlichthys subterraneus. We have the cave adapted grotto salamander, Typhlotriton spelaeus, not to be confused with the cave salamander Eurycea lucifuga, which is a troglophile, and a bright orange, not white. There are also a number of cave snails, amphipods, and other invertebrates which are found nowhere else in the world.

  All of our cave life is protected by law, and permits are required to possess them. With increasing threats from disturbance by man, and their limited range as cave animals, we ask that you respect their right to be and do not harm them. The MSS has members who are outstanding experts on our cave life, and most are willing to share what they know, in an effort to understand and protect them.