Muchakaima N°5 (Niamapadja)

Michael Laumanns - 28/11/2015

Finally a 12 m deep vertical pit equipped with a rusty rack to fix a winch for guano exploitation is reached on the karst plateau. This is one of the entrances to Muchakaima No. 5. The main entrance is situated 60 m to the W. It is a roof collapse, which is easily climbable. The entrance rift (8 m high, 2 m wide) leads down to a junction room where several passages of phreatic origin on two levels split off. A short tunnel to the N host a large colony of the small bat species Triaenops persicus afer (PETERS 1877) (about 5.000 individuals). Another tunnel, leading to the N, is narrow in the beginning (2,5 m wide, 0,8 m high) but widens after a short distance significantly to 4 m width and 4 m height in average. It is a fine phreatic tube with a few branches on a higher level. This former water collector leads in NE direction and ramifies into a network of smaller phreatic tubes after about 150 m. A lead to the S enters a wide room where bat guano was dug and winched out through the above-mentioned rack-pit in colonial time. Adjacent to this large chamber is a network of interconnected phreatic tubes. One of them host another 5.000 bats of Triaenops persicus afer (PETERS 1877). A low bedding plane with elliptic cross-section leads to the N where another chamber can be reached, which is smaller than the first one. It has The cave contains a variety of cave animals like a daylight hole in the ceiling, which is the third big spiders of different species, beetles and entrance to the cave. More phreatic tubes follow insects. The locals, who know the entire Cave in N direction inhabited by a third colony of very well, hunt the bats for nutrition purposes. about 5.000 Triaenops persicus afer (PETERS 1877). Except in the most northern extensions of Muchakaima No. 5 there are no bat guano deposits any more. The main deposit in the big chamber is fully exploited. The cave does not contain reasonable calcite formations. Small dripstones are present in the low bedding plane leading from the big chamber to the N and in the most northern section. No conglomerate infillings are present in the cave. An air temperature of 21,4°C was measured.