Mahi Kur Cave is a cave located in Lorestan province in Papi district, near a village called Levan. This cave is the only national natural monument of Lorestan province and was registered in 2006. There are two rare and unique specimens of blind fish in this cave that have not been found anywhere else in the world. These fish have no eyesight and are completely blind. They do not have any traces of outside eyes and are known as

Garra typhlops ''Garra typhlops'', also known as the Iran cave barb is a species of ray-finned fish in the family Cyprinidae. It is endemic to caves in Iran. Like other cave-adapted fish, it is blind and lacks pigmentation. Three other cave-adapted fish speci ...

since they live in groundwater and in dark caves.

The discovery of Mahi Kur Cave

In 1930, two Danish naturalists came to Papi district with the executors of the Tehran-South Railway project. After investigating the tributaries of the Sirom River and Kairud Stream, they arrived at a water hole near the village of Levan and encountered with a type of blind fish. They took several specimens of the blind fish to their country and registered them as "

Iranocypris ''Garra typhlops'', also known as the Iran cave barb is a species of ray-finned fish in the family (biology), family Cyprinidae. It is endemic to caves in Iran. Like other Cavefish, cave-adapted fish, it is blind and lacks Biological pigment, pig ...

" and apparently refuse to reveal the location of the fish. On June 17, 1951, the research and exploration team of an English researcher named Anthony John Smith from Oxford University traveled to Iran to the city of

Kerman Kerman ( fa, كرمان, Kermân ; also romanization of Persian, romanized as Kermun and Karmana), known in ancient times as the satrapy of Carmania, is the capital city of Kerman Province, Iran. At the 2011 census, its population was 821,394, in ...

to discover the location of the blind fish. But after three months he returned to England with no result. Twenty-six years later he realized the fish he was looking for is not in Kerman's aqueducts and is in the Zagros Mountains.

Characteristics of blind fish in Mahi Kur

The home of this blind fish is in groundwater. Since the mouth of Mahi Kur cave is connected to the surface of the groundwater, it makes it possible for the blind fish to come close to the surface of the water during the nights. They are only seen during the hot days of the year near the earth's surface of water. The fish lives in the water temperature from 5 to 28 degrees

Celsius The degree Celsius is the unit of temperature on the Celsius scale (originally known as the centigrade scale outside Sweden), one of two temperature scales used in the International System of Units (SI), the other being the Kelvin scale. The ...

First specimen

The blind fish of the blind Persian cave, with the scientific name "

typhlops" belongs to the

common carp The Eurasian carp or European carp (''Cyprinus carpio''), widely known as the common carp, is a widespread freshwater fish of eutrophic waters in lakes and large rivers in Europe and Asia.Fishbase''Cyprinus carpio'' Linnaeus, 1758/ref>Arkive The ...

family.

Second specimen

The blind fish with the scientific name of " Paracobits smithi" belongs to the

stream A stream is a continuous body of water, body of surface water Current (stream), flowing within the stream bed, bed and bank (geography), banks of a channel (geography), channel. Depending on its location or certain characteristics, a stream ...

of the Nemacheilus family. This type of fish, in addition to being deprived of eyes, does not have pigments or scales. It has three pairs of whiskers, the second pair of which grows well and reaches the end of the third pair. The average body length is reported to be 45 mm.

Scientific and research value of blind fish

Blind fish have no economic value in terms of fisheries.

The Access Path

Mahi Kur Cave is accessible both by road and by rail. Among the trains going to Lorestan, only the "normal" train of Tehran- Ahvaz and the "local" train of Doroud- Andimeshk stop at Tang-e haft station. Then from this station you have to walk to the north (parallel to the Caesar River) to the Sirom Bridge and then from there to the west (towards the villages of Levan and Lolri) until after about four hours of walking, you will reach the village of Levan and Mahi Kur Cave.

References

{{coord missing, Iran Caves of Iran Show caves in Iran