World’s Deepest Land Bug

By Alex in Animals & Pets, Pictures, Science & Tech on Feb 26, 2012 at 12:32 pm

Scientists went to the Krubera Cave, the deepest known cave on the planet, to discover the world's deepest insects. They found these creepy-crawlies living more than 6,400 feet below the Earth's surface:

Researchers documenting life in the world’s deepest cave, Krubera-Voronya on the eastern side of the Black Sea, discovered four new species of springtail, including the eyeless Anurida stereoodorata (inset), which subsist on fungi and decaying organic material. The intrepid scientists monitored sections of the cave for a month, looking for life using pitfall traps baited with cheese. Two of the species, Plutomurus ortobalaganensis (pictured above), found 1980 meters down, and Schaefferia profundissima found 1600 meters down, now hold the record for deepest living underground invertebrates, researchers report today in Terrestrial Arthropod Reviews.

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  1. anonymous coward
    Feb 26th, 2012 at 6:03 pm

    Haha. Everyone always falls for cheese.

  2. Sandi Craws
    Feb 26th, 2012 at 8:47 pm

    I think it would be hiliarious if someone snuck down into the cave and ate half the cheease making sure to leave teeth marks in the unfinished bits….. you’d have the researchers crapping themselves.


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