Borra Caves

Herbert Daniel Gebauer - 14/12/2015

rmations. Inside, it is mystical and dark with incandescent glowing points aided strategically placed artificial lighting. The stalactites and stalagmites assume impossible shapes and were named after the form they take, from revered Hindu gods and goddesses and divine creatures to Mother Mary« (DE 2007: 214 with upside down colour photograph on page 215). CAVE DESCRIPTION 2007c: incredibletourism.com/andhra-pradesh-travel (accessed 2007.12.14) draws the attention of nerds with a taste for projecting private mind frames to »… several interesting structures like a mushroom, a temple, a mosque, a church and many more« which have been shaped into forms resembling those of calcite formations. CAVE DESCRIPTION 2011: »… the million-year-old limestone Borra Caves« (LONELY PLANET, India 2011: 913). CAVE DESCRIPTION 2014: »The Belum and Bora Caves of Andhra Pradesh form exemplary karst features of great research importance to earth and archeological sciences, besides being attractive tourist destinations. These caves were formed by the dissolution of carbonate rocks (such as limestones and dolomites) through the action of groundwater. This process has contributed to the creation of a variety of surface and sub-surface features. The karstic features in and around these caves include karren, sinkholes, dolines, disappearing streams and karst springs. Sub-surface features include large caves with impressive speleothems (stalagmites and stalactites). These karstic features probably developed during more moist periods in the past. Subsequent change in climate to semi-aridity likely reduced the rate of dissolution of the carbonate to the currently observed rates« (NARAYANA, A C, YADAVA, Madhusudan G; DAR, Faruq Ahmed & RAMESH, R 2014: 189). ARCHAEOLOGY: The works of an unspecified KRISHNASWAMI (perhaps V D ?) need to be identified and traced, read and eventually understood because a certain »Krishnaswami has also taken up cave exploration in the limestone areas of the Araku valley in the Visakhapatnam district, for probably occupation sites by early man« (SEN, Dharani 1953: 186). PRAKASH P Vijaya, RATH Alok & RAO S Krishna (1995) excavated and collected stone age tools (lithic implements) in an unspecified association with the Borra Cave, applied remarkable and challenging outbursts of peculiarly administered geomorphological terminology, and ended up reporting nothing less than »a Middle Paleolithic scraper industry.« BASKAR et al. (2007: 351) simply state that »The caves have an archaeological importance due to the discovery of some Palaeolithic implements« without revealing their source of inspiration. CULTURAL HISTORY - Cave legend: Somebody (no name mentioned) once created in the olden times a tale according to which »Borra cave was first discovered by William King George [sic! Dr. William King] of the Geological Survey of India in the year 1807 [sic! 1882]. Before King George discovered the cave the story goes that a cowherd found that one of his cows had fallen down a gaping hole in the earth and when he went into the cave to retrieve the cow he found formations in the cave akin to shiva lingas nearby and associated the survival of the cow to the shiva lingas hence started to worship them. Later on King George discovered the Borra cave and revealed its presence to the world« (SRINIVASULU & SRINIVASULU 2003: 4). HUMAN USE: Borra Cave had been of religious importance to tribals and was turned into a Hindu temple cave sacred to Shiva (note 14). In the early 1990ies, somebody had successfully talked decision makers of the Andhra Pradesh Tourism Development Corporation (APTDC) into developing and managing the Borra Cave as a show cave producing the sight of »natural formations« a.k.a. »interesting structures« (note 15). The APDC illuminates the cave with »mercury, sodium vapor and halogen lamps, 63 in all« (SRINIVASULU & SRINIVASULU 2003: 4) and this gaudy coloured artificial illumination is believed by some to »make the interior of the caves colourful and spectacular. November- December would be the ideal time to visit the caves. There are mica mines in and around this village and it is believed that there are immense possibilities of mining precious stones like rubies« (BASKAR et al 2007). CAVE CLIMATE: SRINIVASULU & SRINIVASULU (2004: 4-5) measured »Light intensity, temperature and relative humidity … at different points in all the levels to ascertain the ill effects of illumination and other human induced activities to the cave environment and the biota therein. A significant variation was noted with respect to light intensity in the twilight, threshold and the dark zones. It varied between between no light, generator-powered lights or the AC powered lights showing that illumination of any kind is detrimental to the cave environment and the biota therein. Significant variations were noted with respect to temperature between no light and different light conditions in all the levels. In the twilight to dark zones when compared to the entrance zone significant variations in temperature were noted under different illuminated conditions. A significant variation in relative humidity was seen in different illuminated conditions at different time periods. The cave authorities put on lights for the benefit oftourists which results in a significant decrease in humidity. This is harmful for the sensitive speleothems – the stalactites and stalagmites, which have taken millions of years to form are subjected to this and other such disturbance, such as increase in temperature. The increase in temperature results from bright light ranging from 18 W to 400 W and unrestricted number of tourists who may visit the cave in a given period of time. The tourists start pouring in from 10.00 a.m. onwards, and so the lights are put on at times even an hour or so before. This leads to decrease in humidity levels, coupled with increase in temperature. We could not do any studies on other fauna of the cave due to paucity of time however we found that the bats dispersed further into the recesses of the cave i.e. the dark zone areas wherever there was no illumination of any kind as against the clumping behaviour they exhibited in bright light conditions. Same was the case with the Heteropoda spp. and the cave crickets that could be heard and were also detected dispersed in many parts of the dark zone in non-illuminated conditions. However with increasing human disturbance and illumination they became concentrated only near the spring of the Gosthani river.« BASKAR et al. (2007: 351) report from an unspecified location somewhere in the »Araku Hills« (Ananthagiri?) a mean annual temperature of 25°C and an annual rainfall of 950 mm »mostly coming from the north-east monsoon« and later on had the impression »The average [sic!] temperature of the inner cave wall was approximately 16°C« measured without specified method at an unknown hour of an undated day. CAVE LIFE: In January 1997 A. Abele and H.D. Gebauer noticed lots of unspecified bats (Chiroptera) but SRINIVASULU & SRINIVASULU (2003: 5) made a more systematic biospeleological survey during the fortnight between 2003.03.02 and 16: »During the study period, seven species of bats were encountered of which five species could be identified. They were Rousettus leschenaulti [Desmarest 1820], the Fulvous Fruit Bat (2500 to 3000 individuals) found to occupy the dome in the threshold zone; Eonycteris spelaea, the Dawn Bat (200 to 300 individuals) observed along with the Fulvous Fruit Bat and also dispersed in the dark zone; Rhinopoma hardwickii, the Lesser Mouse-tailed Bat, observed on the ceiling at the entrance and at the Gostahni gorge area; Taphozous melanopogon, the Black-bearded Tomb Bat, majority observed near the sinkholes and also the ceiling at the entrance level of the cave; and Rhinolophus lepidus, Blyth’s Horseshoe Bat (1 to 5 individuals), observed only in the dark zone. Of the two unidentified species, one probably belongs to genus Hipposideros and another to family Vespertilionidae. The light-tolerant hardy species namely Rhinopoma hardwickii and Taphozous melanopogon did not show any changes in behaviour under illuminated conditions. However, with relative increase in the light intensity and in temperature the behaviour of the bats found in the twilight to dark zones was altered as they exhibited clumping behaviour and increased agitation leading to the death of young falling down from the nursing colonies. … Other fauna encountered in the cave were spiders (Heteropoda spp.), Cave Cricket (unidentified spp.) that were found in the dark zone; The Forest Calotes, Calotes rouxii; the Bark Gecko, Hemidactylus leschenaultii and numerous Rhesus Macaques, Macaca mulatta were encountered near the cave entrance.« CHAKRABORTY, S et al. (2004) are said to report the presence of the horseshoe bats (Hipposideros lankadiva Kelaart 1850) from the »Borra caves« (KAUR, Harpreet et al. 2011). SRINIVASULU B & SRINIVASULU C (2004) studied roost site characteristics of bats of Borra Caves (note 16). SRINIVASULU et al. (2005: 2) report from »Borra Caves« not only the Lesser Mouse-tailed Bat or Rhinopoma hardwickei Gray 1831 (note 17) but also the Black-bearded Tomb Bat Taphozous melanopogon Temminck 1841 (note 18). BASKARA et al (2007: 352) draw the attention to »mucus-like biofilms [algae?] which are thick orange [coloured] microbial mats (2.5–3 cm thick) with patches of yellow biofilms extending 3 m from the aphotic deep cave orifice were seen floating on the spring waters [colour photograph on page figure 2d]. The fauna in the caves were predominantly bats and bat guano deposits were observed. The flora consisted of mosses and brown-to-green algae.« SRINIVASULU B & SRINIVASULU C (2005b) studied the diet of the black-bearded tomb bat Taphozous melanopogon Temminck 1841 (Chiroptera: Emballonuridae) with the help faecal pellet samples procured from individuals mist netted (2nd to 16th March 2003) at »Borra Caves« (forest area) and from a semi-urban area at northern Secunderabad (Ranga Reddy district, 18th March to 2nd April 2003): »Representatives of 11 insect orders and spiders (Araneidae) contributed to the diet. Forest bats fed on 1-9 insect orders and araneids indicating opportunistic feeding behaviour, while the semi-urban bats fed on 3-8 insect orders and araneids indicating selective feeding behaviour. Forest bats fed predominantly on Coleoptera, Homoptera, Lepidoptera, Hemiptera, Orthoptera, Odonata and Araneidae, while the semi-urban bats preferred Lepidoptera, Coleoptera, Diptera, Orthoptera, Odonata, Hemiptera, Araneidae and Homoptera.« RANGA REDDY, SHAIK & VENKATESWARA RAO (2014) give a taxonomical description of Habrobathynella borranensis n. sp. (Crustacea: Syncarida: Bathynellaceae: Parabathynellidae) collected from »the Borra Caves … The specimens (one male, two females, and two juveniles) studied were sorted from core samples collected near the edges of a lentic pool of one of the inner chambers of the Borra Caves near Visakhapatnam. A rigid PVC tube (length 70 cm, diameter 11 cm) was used for coring. The cores, taken from the sediment surface to a depth of 5 to 8 cm, were pooled in a bucket and stirred well with the habitat water. The supernatant was filtered through bolting-silk plankton net (mesh size 70 µm), and the filtrate fixed in 5% formalin. Incidentally, two good specimens of the new species along with a scolopendromorph centipede were obtained when the sand accumulated in a water bottle abandoned by a tourist in a cave pool was treated as above. Specimens were sorted into 70% alcohol and subsequently transferred into glycerol. Dissection was carried out in glycerol …«