Subterranean Fishes of the World

4100

2009

Smithsonian Contributions to the Marine Sciences

269-280

38

Inland (anchialine) and offshore submarine caves in limestone and volcanic bedrock are extreme environments inhabited by endemic, cave-adapted (typically eye- and pigment-reduced) fauna. Specialized cave diving technology is essential for investigating this habitat. A number of new higher taxa are represented herein, including closely related species inhabiting caves on opposite sides of the Earth, thus suggesting an ancient common ancestry. Because many of these species are known from only a single cave, pollution or destruction of caves will result in their extinction. Worldwide diving discoveries of living fossil animals from the depths of anchialine and marine caves

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