peterswart's Journal

Trip Date: 2024-05-18

Cave Zones

I currently use the field "Cave Zone" to indicate where in cave the observation was made. I have used the following definitions:

• Entrance: Where there is enough light for some vascular plants to grow.
• Twilight: Where there is not enough light for vascular plants, but some mosses may grow/
• Dark Zone: No light at all

It appears that another zone between Twilight and Dark is needed. This 'Transition Zone' would describe the zone between Twilight and Dark, and would be characterized by being mostly dark, for most of the day, but where some dim reflected light may be seen at certain times of the day. The reason for this extension is that this area seems to be a popular habitat.

Trip Date: 2024-05-08

Oresti took me to Hangklip Cave on Hangklip. We spent 3 hours looking for the cave, and found a new, 4m deep, vertical shaft while searching. The sides of the entrance are very sandy, and it looks like a potentially dangerous descent.

The Hangklip Cave was probably a large chamber that has collapsed, and there a number of entrances into the cave. A stream runs through one side of the cave.

The largest residents of the cave were a small colony of Rhinolophus and Miniopterus bats. I saw about 20 bats. Oresti said the colony was far larger on his previous visit, so the cave is probably a seasonal roost.

There were Paramelita in the stream and many Wishbone spider tunnel openings in the floor. These entrances ranged from a few millimeters in diameter to approximately 10mm.

Oresti saw small cave crickets, but I did not see them, so that will be something to search for on the next visit.

Trip Date: 2024-04-20

Bobby's Grotto

On the way to Bobby's Grotto, I walked across the burnt area. There is a boulder filled depression that needs further investigation. Water disappears through the sand into a boulder choke.

Someone has left a bundle of clothes in the cave, and probably sleep there. There was much less life than I expected.

Tartarus

In the debris, in the twilight zone, near the cave entrance, the centipede, and Cryptadaeum were my favourite finds. The centipede was really speedy, and difficult to catch. There were three Cryptadaeum, all of which were on rotting wood.

In the dark zone of the cave, I found three Styloniscus. They all emerged from rotting wood lying in the stream. One Styloniscus tried to escape from me by running down the passage wall into the water. It stayed underwater for about 2 minutes, before climbing out again.

Little Tartarus

I had a look into the entrance of the cave. A large boulder in the entrance makes entry difficult, so I did not go into the cave.

Sarcophagus Cave

I popped in to the cave to look for bristletails. I found two young ones in the high level entrance. Same 10 square cm as last time.

Paramelita Cave

On the way back to the path, I found a resurgence with a very shallow stream. The underside of rocks in the stream were covered with paramelita. Lots of different shapes and sizes.

Trip Date: 2024-03-01

I'm not sure of the name of this cave, but it is on Cecilia Ridge, so I've called it Cecilia Cave. It is a tube approximately 2m in diameter that goes straight into the mountain for about 15m. Its very dry and dusty. There is a large pile of plant material (1.2m high) in the middle of the cave. This pile was there when I last visited the cave in the late 1990s.

Spiders and moths were the largest groups of inhabitants.

Trip date: 2024-03-29

The upper parts of Six Moles Cave is quite dry and dusty, and home to a few Izithuni spiders. They live under the boulders in the top entrance chamber, just below and inside the northern entrance.

There were a lot of cave crickets through out the cave. Most however were concentrated at the deepest part of the cave where a winter time stream has cut a channel in the sandy floor. The stream was not flowing, but the sand was very damp.

This trip concentrated on bristletails. These occurredly main at the bottom of the southern entrance, and near the top of "The Corkscrew" descent. Although not easy to see, I found 7 in quick succession. When disturbed, their first reaction was to run for the nearest crack or crevice, and only when that did not work, they jumped.

One bristletail was both inside the cave entrance, and in direct sunlight. As soon as the camera approached, it very quickly hid in a crevice.

All of the others were at the bottom of the boulder choke in narrow cracks between boulders. This made photography very difficult, as some of the cracks were less than 20cm wide. Some were on the bottom of the large boulders that form the ceiling of the chamber. There is very a little leaf litter on the cave floor at this point. The bristletails were found much higher up on the walls and ceiling, and nowhere near the leaf litter.

Perhaps they use the boulder choke as a day time refuge, and ascend to leave the cave and feed on the surface at night?

Trip Date: 2024-03-22

Cave A: 2024-03-22

This is the largest cave at the pool. (147m from entrance drip line to the back wall). The first third of the cave floor closest to the entrance is covered in drift wood. The last third of the cave floor is covered by a thick layer of mostly dry and dusty bat guano. On previous visits to the cave, this was a wet, glutinous goo.

Bats

Miniopterus and Rhinolphus roost in a little side passage on the north wall, and in two small chambers at the back of the cave. Rousettus roost in the ceiling of cave directly over the biggest pile of guano. There are fewer Rousettus than I remember.

Cave Walls

The northern wall of the cave next to the guano pile is full of large spiders. Approx. 5 per m²

Guano

I was surprised how little life was visible on the surface of the guano. The most abundant inset was a small flying bug with long antennae.

Water

The stream was full of life. A planarian, a small isopod I only saw in the photographs afterwards and many strong swimming Parameltia nigroculus.

Trip Date: 2024-03-22 to 2024-03-23

Cave B: 2024-03-22

The entrance to this cave is full of drift wood, and a stream flows out of the cave.

On the way to the upper level, a Cedarberg Ghost frog had wedged itself into a crack about 2m above the floor. There were also a lot of moths in the area.

I disturbed a few hundred Miniopterus bats in the upper chamber, and also saw some Rhinolophus. I thought I saw a Myotis, but could not be certain. One Rhinolophus was still flaying around with a pup attached to her.

I found 1 Stone centipede which attempted to escape into a crack. Unfortunately it was damaged when I tried to extract it.

There were 2 bed bugs and lots of spiders in the cave.

On leaving the top chamber, I came around another Ghost frog on the cave wall at least 6m above the ground.

Trip Date: 2024-03-10

Visited Sarcophagus Cave to look for bugs.

My last visit was in Nov 1993. This cave is small, with less than 20m of passage. The high level left hand fork is very narrow and mostly dry. The right hand fork descends from the entrance to a small chamber. A stream issues from a narrow crack and forms a small pool (40cm diameter) on the floor. The stream was flowing and the pool was full, even at the end of March. The cave does not have a true dark zone, so apart from the three entrances, the rest of the cave can be considered a transition zone for bug purposes.

Left passage Pool and surrounds
8x Paramelita, 6 large and 2 quite small.
1x very small, gray flat worm
7x Spelaeiacris tabularis, 4 large, 3 small
2x very fine sheet spider webs in cracks, no spiders visible.

Left passage entrance
There is very dense fynbos and a small tree outside the left entrance, and rich humus falls into the cave. There is also an old plastic bag buried in the soil, and the rusted remains of an old camping gaz canister.

This humus was home to many small bugs and spiders, including 2 harvestmen. I also finally found the spider that creates the sheet webs.

Trip Date: 2024-02-11

The objective of this trip was to see what lives in the transition zone at the bottom of Devil's Pit lower entrance.

To get into the the lower entrance of Devil's Pit, you negotiate a 2m drop through a boulder choke. This is in a small copse of trees, so there is a lot of plant debris in the first section. Near the bottom of the boulder choke a sandy passage runs off towards the bottom of the main pit via 'Creepy Corridor' , and a choke continues down into 'Free Drinks Saloon'. There is direct sunlight at the bottom of the choke, but 'Creepy Corridor' and 'Free Drinks Saloon' are mostly, but not completely dark. My search concentrated on these most dark sections.

Apart from the cave crickets, most of the things I saw were spiders.

One wall of creepy corridor is covered with fine plant roots, and running freely over these roots was a small Pholcidae spider. It attempted to avoid my torch light and was very difficult to photograph.

On a piece of rotting log on the floor of the cave, I found a Phyxelididae spider

At the darkest end of Creepy Corridor, an Izithunzi capense spider. This was one of the lighter coloured specimens. The Izithunzi in the lower part of the cave were much darker in colour.

There few also a few very small Phyxelididae spiders running around on the humus on the floor of the cave.

Free Drinks Saloon is the lowest part of the entrance, and a stream issues from a narrow passage 1.5m above the camber floor, and disappears into another narrow passage entrance at floor level. Someone has left a number of 2litre plastic ice-cream containers to store water. Most of the containers collecting water that drips from the ceiling, but one container collects water as the stream falls from the upper passage. A Taeniochauliodes fuscus (Table Mountain Fishfly) larva was trapped in this container. It was about 35mm long, and moved very sluggishly.

There was another Phyxelididae spider amongst the rocks on the floor. This spider spent most of the time trying to escape me by moving around upside down under its web.

Spermophora peninsulae occurred through out the area under examination. The spiders that were inside the very dark areas of the cave each occurred in its own web. The same species was found in webs around the entrance to the cave, in direct sun light. These spiders in the direct sun light often appeared to share a common web, with up to 4 spiders of similar size in the same web.

I searched for, but did not find any harvestmen.

Trip Date: 2023-11-11
The objective of this trip was to see what lives in Johalvin Cave, Kalk Bay Mountains

Egyptian Cave

Popped on at Eyptian Cave to look for a missing coffee mug. Did not find the mug, but found tweezers I left behind last week.

I found:

• 8x Spermophora peninsulae within 0.5m x 0.5 m, appeared to be sharing the same web
• Small white amphipod
• A bristletail close to the entance.
• I could NOT find the mosquitos I saw last week

Johalvin Cave

Johalvin Cave is an enlarge crack under the floor of a tree filled alcove. The floor of the cave is between 4m and 6m below the floor of the alcove. Most of the cave receives some filtered light for most of the day, while there are some small permanently dark areas at the back of the cave.

Water drips into the cave from the ceiling, and runs out through a narrow passage towards Commemoration Hall Cave, and Broken Pot Grotto.

Most of the cave can thus be considered to be an Transistion Zone. Under the sky light entrance, there is a lot of rotting leaf material and any animals in this area could have fallen into the cave. I spent 4.5 hours in this relatively small cave, and found the following:

I found:

• 27x Cave Crickets
• 5x False violin spiders. Some lived very close (overlapping webs) with similar sized Phyxelididae spiders
• lots of other spiders
• 3x bristletails
• bat droppings (very old)
• Moths
• 1x Planarian (No photo)
• 1x harvestman
• 2 snails

The soil under the sky light is full of life. Colembola, diplura, symphyla, earthworms, centipedes, isopods, amphipods and much more. All of these are too small to photograph with my current gear.