peterswart's Journal

Trip Date: 2024-02-11

Visited lower entrance, Creepy Corridor and Free Drinks Saloon.

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.

Trip Date: 2023-11-05
The objective of this trip was to see what lives in Entrance Zone of Egyptian Cave

Egyptian Cave

Egyptian Cave is large, open chamber. The whole cave is mostly in the twilight zone, with the possible exception of a low, sandy passage that heads towards Blue Disa Cave. The passage was not investigated on this trip.

Water was dripping from the ceiling at the back of the main chamber, and there was a shallow pool, filled by the drops falling from the ceiling. I did not see any life in the pool. The cave is very polluted. Broken glass, plastic and old zinc carbon batteries can be found throughout the cave.

The whole cave is closely coupled to the surface environment, and a lot of organic material falls into the entrance from the trees that surround the entrance.

I expected to find Paramelita and planaria in the pool, but did not. This may be because it is fed by drips from the ceiling, rather than water flowing into the pool. This may be different in winter.

I did find:

• 17x Cave Crickets, 4 in the passage under the entrance, and 13 near the pool
• 1x small Phyxelidid Spider. The head+abdomen together were about 8mm long. I thought it was a small False-violin spider, but was corrected.
• 3x Spermophora peninsulae All three where quite small.
• 1x Another spider. Small whole spider about 3mm.
• 1x Another spider. Very small whole spider was less than 1mm. No picture.
• 2x Mosquitoes? Not sure about this. They looked like mosquitoes, but I did not catch one.
• 1x harvestman It looks quite small, and the legs appear to be transparent.
• 1x snail This is probably fell into the cave along with the dead leaves it was on.

Dark Zone + Entrance

Trip Date: 2023-10-21, Most of this trip was spent in the 35m of stream passage below the entrance boulder choke. Some observations were made in the twilight zone in the cave entrance, but this was an after thought, and not part of the original plan. I was underground for about 4.5 hours.

The water temperature was 13.7 degrees C (TG6 sensor).

I found the following:

• Paramelita capensis. I counted about 50, but I'm sure there were a lot more as they tend to keep close to rocks and stones, and often hide underneath rocks. There was also a ball of them that appears to be eating a large dead amphipod. On closer inspection of the photographs, it looks like planaria were also in the "ball".
• An Isopod. This small white isopod (3.7mm long) was walking along a wet cave wall very close to a flowing stream.
• Fungus I think it is fungus. It is spongy to the touch, but not very soft.
• I only counted 4 adult Spelaeiacris tabulae in the main cave passage and another two much small cave crickets on the crawl out through the boulder choke.
• This fly was well into the dark zone of the cave. When I first examined the walls of the caves, I did not see much life at all. On closer examination of some of the alcoves in the cave wall, I noticed they were filled with very fine, difficult to see spider webs. I did not find the spiders. This fly was on the edge of a 30cmx40xmx20cm recess in the wall. I'm not sure whether it was attached to the web or not.
• In the twilight zone entrance chamber, this beetle was caught in the web or a large Izuthunzi capensisspider. The spider did not like my light and hid in a crevice.
• I saw three Spermophora peninsulaeThe first two were so small I kept on losing them, even though they were right infront of me.
• I saw one bristletail.

Trip Date: 2023-10-01
The objective of this trip was to see what lives in Entrance Zone of caves on Constantiaberg.

Elephant Arse Cave

Despite there being quite a lot of running and standing water in the cave, and an hour long search, I did not find any amphipods in the water. I did not see any planaria either.

I did find:

• False violin spiders
• 1x Another spider??
• 4x bristletails
• dassie droppings
• another dropping

Aboulia Cave

This cave has many entrances, all of which lead to a passage which is parallel to the external cliff, which is 2m to 5m away. This means that the passage is very tightly coupled to the external surface conditions. The water was 25cm deep in places, and full of Paramelita.

Search time 1 hour:

• a planarian (Dugessiidae)
• a moth caught in a web
• 3x False violin spiders
• 1x snail
• Paramelita capensis?
• Bristletail waliking on water

Sensor: TG6 Camera

• Water temp inside: 8.5; 8.5; 8.9 [deg C] (left camera in water for 2 mins)
• Air temp inside: 10.5; 10.6; 11.5 [deg C]
• Air temp outside: 16.1; 16.3; 16.6; 16.8 [deg C] (it felt warmer)
• Cave alt: (inside the cave passage): 838.1; 854.9; 854.6 [m]

Trip Date: 2023-09-09

The objective of this trip was to see what lives in entrance of caves on Ridge Peak at Kalk Bay.

Ronan's Well Cave

I limited the search area to the walls and floor of the Voorkamer as far as the pool at the bottom of the staircase. The stream flows out of Ronan's Well and into Echo Valley.

• Paramelita: There were lots (20+) of Paramelita of all sizes in the pools. Some were eating green moss leaves from the walls of the cave.
• Planaria: There were a few varying from 4mm to 15mm long. this one was 10mm long and gray in colour.
• Bristletails: I found 4 Bristletails, in cracks on the cave walls.
• Spelaeiacris. Two small cave crickets where in a crack in the cave wall, very close to the entrance and far from the dark part of the cave.
• Spiders: At least 3 species of spider. Spermophora peninsulae appeared to be the most common. There was also what looked like Spermophora peninsulae, but they had very small bodies (<1mm) and appeared white in colour.

Tjoklets Grotto

The stream from Drip Water Pot flows through Ridge Peak and out of Tjkolets Grotto. As this cave follows a similar line to the Robin Hood/Ronan's Well system, I would expect to see similar water life in these two systems. There was far less water life than I expected.

• Paramelita capensis??
• Planaria (white)
• Spelaeiacris

Styx Dungeon

The entrance to this cave is in a tree filled depression, so I sampled the leaf litter on the outside of the cave entrance and on the inside to see the difference. The sample from inside the cave was approx 3m below the entrance. The rotting leaf litter was home to:

• Colembola
• Millipede
• Millipede
• Symphylans
• Isopod
• Harvestman (very small and white)

Boomslang

I popped in to Boomslang Cave to check on the bats, but the Miniopterus roosting spot was empty.

Observations to be posted shortly

Trip Date: 2023-08-27

Bats

There was one lonely Rhinolophus near the entrance pool, but the Miniopterus where not in their usual spot.

Harvestmen

Found two harvestmen on a rotting log in a short side passage next to the boulder pile. The passage was full of spiders.

Middle Pool

Photographed Paramelita and Planaria

Trip Date: 2023-08-19

Bats

There were about 250 Miniopterus bats in the cave. They were in their usual winter cluster on the cave ceiling, but were very wide awake. They all flew off when we walked past, so I presume we were not the first visitors to cave this morning. We were in the cave for about an hour, and during that time at least 50 other people came through the cave. Lots of disturbance.

Entrance Pool

Very full, and quite deep

Middle Pool

in the main passage just before the link to Bat Chamber

2m long, 10cm at its deepest. Lots of Paramelita and Planaria

End Pool

past the link to Bat Chamber

Lots of flies on the wall above the pool, but the pool itself seemed devoid of larger life. There was candle wax floating on the surface, and a dead Spelaeiacris covered in jelly floating about half way between the surface and the bottom.

Link Pool

leading to Bat Chamber

Deep, only the tops of the stepping stones were above the surface

• Peter
• Reece