http://www.jutarnji.hr/life/znanost/svjetska-senzacija-u-utrobi-velebita-nasli-smo-prvu-podzemnu-zivotinjsku-vrstu-s-krilima/3730315/

Croatian biospeleologists found deep in the bowels of the Velebit mountain a tiny insect with wings, which was a complete surprise, because this is the first finding of underground animal species, with wings.

There is no doubt that this is a troglobiont, as experts call cave animals completely adapted to the underworld, but they are to be regarded as completely incompatible with wings.

This fact, as well as the distance of the new insect of the closest relatives, have led experts to give him the name "cave Heidi" (Troglocadius hajdi), after a small flying creature of the Slavic mythological tradition that carries news about the fate.

Traces of these mythological creatures in folk traditions are present today in Gorski Kotar in the name of the cave Hajdova House, overlooking the village Grbajel.

We were very surprised, because it was something unexpected that can fly in total darkness, said Hina Martina Pavlek with Ruder Boskovic Institute in Zagreb, one of the authors of the six-member international team of biologists.

A team of experts are still Marija Ivkovic from the University of Zagreb, Trond Andersen, Linn Katrine Hagenlund and Gunnar Mikalsen Kvifte the University of Bergen in Norway, and Viktor Baranov from the Leibnitz Institute in Berlin.

The article was published in the journal "PLoS ONE", in which the header says that the world's first multi-disciplinary open-access Journal, which publishes top-level scientific research, based on a strict methodology and high ethical standards.

The first copy of a new genus and new species found in 2010 in Luka's cave at a depth of about 800 meters. It was found by speleolog Croatian Biospeleological Society Marko Lukić during the summer expedition to the pit. In 2011 discovered three new individuals at a depth of 980 meters, and two years later at the same depth in the hall where he was placed third camp cavers, several copies.

Heidi is an average-sized 1.8-2.2 mm and has broad wings. Discoloration, a strong reduction of the eyes and very long legs make it a typical underground organism that lives in the dark so you can best manage contacts. No, the wings that has retained hajdi cave deep underground, raises many questions about how it is oriented in complete darkness adds Martina Pavlek.

She noted that bats are not in the true sense of underground species, but there are your shelter.

Cave hajdi is not only a new species, but is significantly different from the known relatives of overhead, so the experts have described as a new genus.

It's hard to be grouped with other representatives of the family trzalca (Chironomidae), because the larvae were found, nor male, but from adult animals only females, but mainly because, due to the body adapting to the underworld completely different from the above-ground representative says Martina Pavlek.

Besides, Troglocadius hajdi probably pertenogenična species, which means that the female is capable of self-fertilization.

The discovery confirms that the Dinar Karst extremely important "spot" underground biodiversity, warns the current president of the Croatian Society Biospeleological Martina Pavlek, who currently resides in Spain, where he works on the description of new species and genera underground.

In the Dinaric karst, which engages the belt from Italian to Slovenian-Montenegrin-Albanian border, it was observed more underground type of care across the United States, which are about 150 times higher.

The world has found a cave with only 20 after more than 20 underground species in Dinaric karst cave systems there are a hundred of these species. Some of them live in very narrow areas and are found only in a cave.

Croatian Biospeleological Association, in cooperation with the State Institute for Nature Protection has prepared a list of typical fauna of Croatian and found that in Croatia found underground and 399 described species, a number of places where they were first identified, ie. type localities, is 254th

All these places have a very important role in the study and conservation of biodiversity underground.

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IZAKOVIC