Khapah, Badel (Samuch)

General descriptions

Herbert Daniel Gebauer - 06/01/2018

Samotch Khapah (note 1) is a wet cave and consists of one solitary gallery shaped by the action of water. CAVE DESCRIPTION: The entrance (1.5 m wide and more than 1.5 m high), not far up in the rocky slope of a marble hill, gives access to a 13 m long gallery to a rift (8 to 10 cm wide, 30 cm high) which emits the noise of roaring water and continues in a small, 50 cm large, and water-worn trench (originally: -rigole-). The ceiling height decreases from 3 m (about halfway in) to 1.6 m (at a kind of gate) to reach more than 2 m in the far end. CAVE CONTENTS: There is no bat guano. The floor consists of soil and stones. CAVE LIFE: LINDBERG (1958: 137) redords to have collected Oligochaeta, Mollusca, Diplopoda, Chilopoda, Collembola, Machilida, Blattida, Mantida (at the entrance), Gryllida, Coleoptera (Carabiqua), Formicida, Arachnida (Oiliones), Acaria. JUBERTHIE & DECU (2001: 1747) list Insecta: Thysanura: Machilidae: Haslundichilis lindbergi WYGODZINSKY; Insecta: Orthoptera: Gryllidae: Eremogryllodes major CHOPARD.