Grotta dell'Artiglieria ("Artillery Cave") is a

karst Karst () is a topography formed from the dissolution of soluble carbonate rocks such as limestone and Dolomite (rock), dolomite. It is characterized by features like poljes above and drainage systems with sinkholes and caves underground. Ther ...

cave Caves or caverns are natural voids under the Earth's Planetary surface, surface. Caves often form by the weathering of rock and often extend deep underground. Exogene caves are smaller openings that extend a relatively short distance undergrou ...

in the

municipality A municipality is usually a single administrative division having municipal corporation, corporate status and powers of self-government or jurisdiction as granted by national and regional laws to which it is subordinate. The term ''municipality' ...

Doberdò del Lago Doberdò del Lago (; Venetian language#Regional variants, Bisiacco: ; ) is a (municipality) in the Province of Gorizia, Regional decentralization entity of Gorizia in the Italy, Italian region of Friuli-Venezia Giulia, located about northwest of ...

(

Gorizia Gorizia (; ; , ; ; ) is a town and (municipality) in northeastern Italy, in the autonomous region of Friuli-Venezia Giulia. It is located at the foot of the Julian Alps, bordering Slovenia. It is the capital of the Province of Gorizia, Region ...

Friuli-Venezia Giulia Friuli-Venezia Giulia () is one of the 20 regions of Italy and one of five autonomous regions with special statute. The regional capital is Trieste on the Gulf of Trieste, a bay of the Adriatic Sea. Friuli-Venezia Giulia has an area of and a ...

Italy Italy, officially the Italian Republic, is a country in Southern Europe, Southern and Western Europe, Western Europe. It consists of Italian Peninsula, a peninsula that extends into the Mediterranean Sea, with the Alps on its northern land b ...

). The cave is located NE of Doberdob Lake, near the top of a small hill, in the small village of ''Jamiano''. The name is referred to the

artillery battery In military organizations, an artillery battery is a unit or multiple systems of artillery, mortar systems, rocket artillery, multiple rocket launchers, surface-to-surface missiles, ballistic missiles, cruise missiles, etc., so grouped to f ...

set in the cave during

World War I World War I or the First World War (28 July 1914 – 11 November 1918), also known as the Great War, was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War I, Allies (or Entente) and the Central Powers. Fighting to ...

Morphology

Grotta dell'Artiglieria opens

above sea level Height above mean sea level is a measure of a location's vertical distance (height, elevation or altitude) in reference to a vertical datum based on a historic mean sea level. In geodesy, it is formalized as orthometric height. The zero level ...

. Overall, it is long and deep. The cave is made up of three main rooms, connected by small pits. The entrance is vertical and leads to the first room. On the left side of this cavern, a pit leads to the second room. Another small pit, made up of collapsed bedrocks, leads to the last room, which is the biggest one. This room is full of cave formations and declines subhorizontally until reaching the deepest part of the cave.

History

The cave entrance is located in the vicinity of a panoramic viewpoint, whence it is possible to observe most of the Gorizia Karst, including Doberdob Lake. Because of its location, during

, the

Austro-Hungarian Army The Austro-Hungarian Army, also known as the Imperial and Royal Army,; was the principal ground force of Austria-Hungary from 1867 to 1918. It consisted of three organisations: the Common Army (, recruited from all parts of Austria-Hungary), ...

used the first part of the cave as an

observation post An observation post (commonly abbreviated OP), temporary or fixed, is a position from which soldiers can watch enemy movements, to warn of approaching soldiers (such as in trench warfare), or to direct fire. In strict military terminology, an ...

and placed an

in it. The

Italian Army The Italian Army ( []) is the Army, land force branch of the Italian Armed Forces. The army's history dates back to the Italian unification in the 1850s and 1860s. The army fought in colonial engagements in China and Italo-Turkish War, Libya. It ...

also used the cavity when occupying the area. Still now, the remains of a small

plaque Plaque may refer to: Commemorations or awards * Commemorative plaque, a plate, usually fixed to a wall or other vertical surface, meant to mark an event, person, etc. * Memorial Plaque (medallion), issued to next-of-kin of dead British military p ...

dedicated to an

Italian Italian(s) may refer to: * Anything of, from, or related to the people of Italy over the centuries ** Italians, a Romance ethnic group related to or simply a citizen of the Italian Republic or Italian Kingdom ** Italian language, a Romance languag ...

Artillery Regiment can be seen next to the entrance.

Fauna

In the last decades, the cave was known to be the refuge of an important bat

colony A colony is a territory subject to a form of foreign rule, which rules the territory and its indigenous peoples separated from the foreign rulers, the colonizer, and their ''metropole'' (or "mother country"). This separated rule was often orga ...

, including some hundred specimens.

Bat Bats are flying mammals of the order Chiroptera (). 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 birds, flying with their very long spread-out ...

species are the

common bent-wing bat The common bent-wing bat (''Miniopterus schreibersii''), also known as the Schreibers's long-fingered bat or Schreibers's bat, is a species of insectivorous bat. They appear to have dispersed from a subtropical origin and distributed throughout ...

''Miniopterus schreibersiii'' and the Mediterranean horseshoe bat ''Rhinolophus euryale''. Recently, the colony has strongly decreased and, at certain periods of the year, is completely absent. A fair number of individuals (about 30) has recently been observed between September and October, the

breeding season Seasonal breeders are animal species that successfully mate only during certain times of the year. These times of year allow for the optimization of survival of young due to factors such as ambient temperature, food and water availability, and ch ...

, immediately prior to

hibernation Hibernation is a state of minimal activity and metabolic reduction entered by some animal species. Hibernation is a seasonal heterothermy characterized by low body-temperature, slow breathing and heart-rate, and low metabolic rate. It is mos ...

. Why the colony has decreased and where individuals move throughout the year are still unknown. The Bat colony causes a huge amount of

bat guano Guano (Spanish from ) is the accumulated excrement of seabirds or bats. Guano is a highly effective fertiliser due to the high content of nitrogen, phosphate, and potassium, all key nutrients essential for plant growth. Guano was also, to a l ...

to accumulate in the innermost part of the cave. A large

invertebrate Invertebrates are animals that neither develop nor retain a vertebral column (commonly known as a ''spine'' or ''backbone''), which evolved from the notochord. It is a paraphyletic grouping including all animals excluding the chordata, chordate s ...

community A community is a social unit (a group of people) with a shared socially-significant characteristic, such as place, set of norms, culture, religion, values, customs, or identity. Communities may share a sense of place situated in a given g ...

developed using guano as primary

food source Food is any substance consumed by an organism for nutritional support. Food is usually of plant, animal, or fungal origin and contains essential nutrients such as carbohydrates, fats, proteins, vitamins, or minerals. The substance is inges ...

Invertebrates Invertebrates are animals that neither develop nor retain a vertebral column (commonly known as a ''spine'' or ''backbone''), which evolved from the notochord. It is a paraphyletic grouping including all animals excluding the chordate subphylum ...

are cave dwelling species typical of the Karst area.

Troglobites A troglobite (or, formally, troglobiont) is an animal species, or population of a species, strictly bound to underground habitats, such as caves. These are separate from species that mainly live in above-ground habitats but are also able to live u ...

include woodlouses ''Alpioniscus strasseri'' and ''Androniscus stygius'', and the

round fungus beetle Leiodidae is a family of beetles with around 3800 described species found worldwide. Members of this family are commonly called round fungus beetles due to the globular shape of many species, although some are more elongated in shape. They are g ...

''Bathysciotes khevenhulleri tergestinus''. Troglophiles include the

spiders Spiders (order Araneae) are air-breathing arthropods that have eight limbs, chelicerae with fangs generally able to inject venom, and spinnerets that extrude silk. They are the largest order of arachnids and rank seventh in total species di ...

'' Nesticus eremita'' and '' Troglohyphantes excavatus'', the

cave cricket The orthopteran family Rhaphidophoridae of the suborder Ensifera has a worldwide distribution. Common names for these insects include cave crickets, camel crickets, spider crickets (sometimes shortened to "criders" or "sprickets"), and sand trea ...

''Troglophilus neglectus'', the

cricket Cricket is a Bat-and-ball games, bat-and-ball game played between two Sports team, teams of eleven players on a cricket field, field, at the centre of which is a cricket pitch, pitch with a wicket at each end, each comprising two Bail (cr ...

'' Gryllomorpha dalmatina'', the

moth Moths are a group of insects that includes all members of the order Lepidoptera that are not Butterfly, butterflies. They were previously classified as suborder Heterocera, but the group is Paraphyly, paraphyletic with respect to butterflies (s ...

Scoliopteryx libatrix The herald (''Scoliopteryx libatrix'') is a moth of the family Erebidae. The species was first described by Carl Linnaeus in his 1758 10th edition of ''Systema Naturae''. It is found throughout the Palearctic and Nearctic (Holarctic). Technica ...

,'' the

fly Flies are insects of the order Diptera, the name being derived from the Greek δι- ''di-'' "two", and πτερόν ''pteron'' "wing". Insects of this order use only a single pair of wings to fly, the hindwings having evolved into advanced ...

Limonia nubeculosa ''Limonia nubeculosa'', also known as the short-palped cranefly, is a species of crane flies in the family of Limoniidae.R. L. Coe, Paul Freeman & P. F. Mattingly Nematocera: families Tipulidae to Chironomidae (Tipulidae). ''Handbooks for the Ide ...

'' and an unidentified

phorid fly The Phoridae are a family (biology), family of small, hump-backed Fly, flies resembling Drosophila melanogaster, fruit flies. Phorid flies can often be identified by their escape habit of running rapidly across a surface rather than taking flight ...

species, the

ground beetles Ground beetles are a large, cosmopolitan family of beetles, the Carabidae, with more than 40,000 species worldwide, around 2,000 of which are found in North America and 2,700 in Europe. As of 2015, it is one of the 10 most species-rich animal fa ...

'' Laemostenus cavicola'' and '' Laemostenus elongatus'', and the

rove beetle The rove beetles are a family (biology), family (Staphylinidae) of beetles, primarily distinguished by their short elytra (wing covers) that typically leave more than half of their abdominal segments exposed. With over 66,000 species in thousand ...

''Atheta spelaea.''

References

{{Reflist Caves of Italy Limestone caves Landforms of Friuli-Venezia Giulia Province of Gorizia