Inside China’s caves, where untold animal, plant species could go extinct before being discovered
- Ecologists exploring the vast cave systems of Yunnan in China are discovering unknown animals, from geckos to beetles – finds that could spur conservation
- China and Southeast Asia have some of the richest cave faunas in the world, yet they are largely unexplored
We’re scrambling up slippery rocks inside an abandoned Buddhist tourist cave near Menglun, a town in Yunnan province in southwest China.
Head torches illuminate dripping stalactites and damp green walls on which tiny leeches and microsnails glisten and cave crickets lurk. I try to mirror the enthusiasm of the two students accompanying me, who seem to delight in every creepy-crawly that scuttles past.
Reaching out to hoist myself up, I sink my hand into something mulchy. It’s bat dung, says 26-year-old master’s student Ade Prasetyo Agung, and explains that it’s the equivalent of gold in a place where the sun doesn’t shine, providing a crucial life base for cave-dwelling creatures.
The guano smells like manure and cat urine. Agung points his torch upwards and there they are – a cluster of bats roosting on the ceiling in the darkest chamber of the cave.
The students are members of the landscape ecology group Xishuangbanna Tropical Botanical Garden, of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, under the guidance of Dr Alice Hughes.
“There are about 800,000 sq km of karsts (limestone cave systems) in Southeast Asia,” says Hughes. “Half of that is in southern China, but almost none of it is protected.”
