Lost River - Karst Information Portal

Although the earliest works on cave life in
Indiana date to the early 1870s, the single largest
early contribution to our knowledge of the
state’s cave fauna was the result an expedition by
State Geologist W.S. Blatchley. For five weeks
in 1896 Blatchley drove a two-horse spring
wagon through the south-central Indiana karst,
mapping and collecting specimens from 20
caves. His sampling established the foundation
of our knowledge of Indiana’s cave fauna. This
was built upon by Arthur M. Banta with his
1907 treatise on the fauna of Mayfields Cave
in Monroe County. More than just an analysis
of a single cave, Banta encapsulated essentially
everything that was known about the cave fauna
of Indiana. In 1928 the Frenchmen C. Bolivar
and R. Jeannel visited Marengo and Donaldson
caves and discovered numerous new species of
troglobites at these sites.
Many other individuals have contributed
to our knowledge of Indiana’s cave fauna
through the preparation of numerous theses,
reports, and published papers. Most of these
have concentrated on narrow areas of interest,
for example, taxonomic revisions of genera,
descriptions of new species, ecological studies
of individual sites, or checklists of species of an
area. Over the past 35 years we have visited over
500 Indiana caves for the purpose of sampling
to amass a comprehensive understanding of
the fauna.
Although conservationists face many
challenges in preserving Indiana’s unique
subterranean biodiversity, great strides have
been made. Much of what is now known about
the cave fauna of Indiana is due to bioinventory
projects sponsored by The Nature Conservancy,
Indiana Department of Natural Resources,
Hoosier National Forest, and U.S. Fish and
Wildlife Service. These projects allow datadriven
decisions to be made in conservation
planning for the caves and karst. Tens of
thousands of acres of karstlands, containing
180
The Cave Fauna of Indiana
By Julian J. Lewis and Salisa L. Lewis
hundreds of caves, have been acquired by these
agencies.
Ecological studies such as the long-term
monitoring of the federal endangered Indiana
bat take the conservation effort to a higher
level in attempting to manage and protect
species threatened with extinction. Currently
a program is being instituted to re-introduce
numbers of Allegheny woodrats to bolster the
viability of this animal in the state.
A significant obligate subterranean fauna
(troglobites) exists in Indiana’s caves, but
with the exception of the northern cavefish,
all of them are invertebrates. The average
observer is unlikely to see much of this fauna
without careful observation, as the animals
are frequently tiny (less than 5 millimeters),
confined to specific microhabitats, limited in
their overall distribution to just a few caves,
and sometimes seasonal in occurrence.
To a careful observer, however, almost any
cave in Indiana will provide a diverse array of
interesting animals. The following is an overview
of the cave fauna of Indiana:
Mammals – Four species of bats include
the most commonly seen kinds. The smallest,
the eastern pipistrelle (Perimyotis pipistrellus)
is ubiquitous, usually roosting individually.
Allegheny woodrat.