Six Moles Cave

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?

Posted on March 31, 2024 09:00 PM by peterswart