Residents Deepest Soil Insects Found

Animals that live in places around nearly two kilometers below the surface of the soil found in the cave-Voronja Krubera. It is a family of arthropod animals that live on mushrooms and other ingredients are decomposed.

Latin name Plutomurus orotobalaganensis, researchers found in a depth of 1980 meters below the ground surface. In addition, they also found three new species that roamed the cave, which is Anurida stereoodorata, Deuteraphorura kruberaensis and Schaefferia profundissima.

All four species have been classified as springtails (Collembola), which is a kind of primitive insects that do not have wings. All four live in an environment of total darkness and has no eyes.

The animals were discovered by Ana Sofia Reboleira from the University of Aveiro, Portugal, and Alberto Sendra of the Natural History Museum of Valencia, Spain. They explore the cave-Voronja Krubera as part of the 2010 expedition led by a team of Ibero-Russian CaveX.

The discovery of the species live deep underground in total darkness provide new insights into the extreme conditions in which animals can survive.

Prior to this discovery, springtails are found only half a kilometer underground. At 1986 earlier, found Ongulonychiurus colpus living 550 meters at the bottom of a cave in Spain, and last year, Veles Tritomurus found at a depth of 430 meters in caves in Croatia