Croatian people, inventions, cars and now insects are in the limelight.
An insect with wings has been found by bio-speleologists dwelling inside the caves of Velebit, Croatia’s largest mountain range, nothing spectacular, right? Think again.
The bio-speleologists who discovered the small winged creature claim to have discovered the very first example of this kind of subterranean species with wings in the caves of Mount Velebit.
This tiny, and rather unassuming insect belongs to the classification Troglobiont, a group of cave dwelling animals (who in this case, are not involved in politics) fully adapted to a subterranean existence, but until now, such animals were believed to wing-less.
Martina Pavlek, who is a researcher of the Rudjer Boskovic Institute said that this is a surprising find, and that it was completely unexpected that there are animals able to fly in complete darkness. The Rudjer Boskovic Institute is held in high esteem and is regarded as Croatia’s leading scientific institute in the natural and biomedical sciences as well as marine and environmental research.
Martina Pavlek is a part of the team that has studied this species, named “Troglocadius Hajdi” (“Cave Hajdi”). The newly-discovered organism is rather traditionally named after the Hajdi, a group of winged, dwarf-like creatures from Slavic mythology, who were said to have acted as messengers of fate and lived in caves.
The first example of this organism was found in the Lukina Jama cave, Mount Velebit back in 2010. The article stated that until this discovery there were no known flying Troglobionts. The new species, with a wing length of 1.8-2.2 mm has been observed at depths between 800 and 980 metres.
