Siju Cave, also known as Bat Cave in English, is located in the North East
Indian
Indian or Indians may refer to:
Peoples South Asia
* Indian people, people of Indian nationality, or people who have an Indian ancestor
** Non-resident Indian, a citizen of India who has temporarily emigrated to another country
* South Asia ...
state of
Meghalaya
Meghalaya (, or , meaning "abode of clouds"; from Sanskrit , "cloud" + , "abode") is a state in northeastern India. Meghalaya was formed on 21 January 1972 by carving out two districts from the state of Assam: (a) the United Khasi Hills and J ...
near the
Napak Lake and
Simsang River game reserve
A game reserve (also known as a wildlife preserve or a game park) is a large area of land where wild animals live safely or are hunted in a controlled way for sport. If hunting is prohibited, a game reserve may be considered a nature reserve; ...
. It is a
limestone cave and is famous for its
stalagmites
A stalagmite (, ; from the Greek , from , "dropping, trickling")
is a type of rock formation that rises from the floor of a cave due to the accumulation of material deposited on the floor from ceiling drippings. Stalagmites are typically co ...
and
stalactites.
The Siju cave-system is more than 4 kilometres long, but nearly all of it is filled with water and inaccessible. The limestone hills of Meghalaya receive a lot of rain and moisture and holds many other cave-systems, some of them much longer and larger than Siju, but Siju Cave is among the most thoroughly researched and explored systems.
In 1927, it was found that the Siju caves have a constant temperature of 21–26.4 °C.
Biodiversity and faunistic composition
*
Arachnida:
Opilionida,
Schizomida
Schizomida (common name shorttailed whipscorpion) is an order of arachnids, generally less than in length.
The order is not yet widely studied. About 300 species of schizomids have been described worldwide, most belonging to the Hubbardiidae fa ...
*
Myriapoda
Myriapods () are the members of subphylum Myriapoda, containing arthropods such as millipedes and centipedes. The group contains about 13,000 species, all of them terrestrial.
The fossil record of myriapods reaches back into the late Silurian ...
:
Diplopoda Julida,
Decapoda Natantia
*
Crustacea:
Isopoda Oniscidea
*
Collembola
Springtails (Collembola) form the largest of the three lineages of modern hexapods that are no longer considered insects (the other two are the Protura and Diplura). Although the three orders are sometimes grouped together in a class called Ento ...
:
Entomobryomorpha
The Entomobryomorpha are one of the three main groups ( order) of springtails (Collembola), tiny hexapods related to insects. This group was formerly treated as a superfamily, the Entomobryoidea.
They can be best distinguished from the other ...
*
Insecta
Insects (from Latin ') are pancrustacean hexapod invertebrates of the class Insecta. They are the largest group within the arthropod phylum. Insects have a chitinous exoskeleton, a three-part body (head, thorax and abdomen), three pairs o ...
:
Orthoptera
Some rare
bat
Bats are mammals of the order Chiroptera.''cheir'', "hand" and πτερόν''pteron'', "wing". With their forelimbs adapted as wings, they are the only mammals capable of true and sustained flight. Bats are more agile in flight than most ...
species live in these caves.
See also
*
Caves of Meghalaya
Literature
*
References
External links
* Meghalaya Tourism
Siju Cave
Caves of Meghalaya
{{Meghalaya-geo-stub