• Email Us: [email protected]
  • Contact Us: +1 718 874 1545
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar

Medical Market Report

  • Home
  • All Reports
  • About Us
  • Contact Us

Bizarre Life Lurks In Movile Cave After Being Sealed For 5 Million Years

January 13, 2023 by Deborah Bloomfield

The inhabitants of the Movile Cave are like no others on planet Earth. After being cut off from the rest of the world some 5.5 million years ago, a unique ecosystem has sprung up here, despite the total lack of sunlight and toxic air that would prove too harsh for most terrestrial animals. 

Located just a few miles west of the Black Sea in Romania, the Movile Cave was first discovered by humans in 1986 when workers of the Socialist Republic of Romania were looking for new ground to build a nuclear power plant.  Nowadays, it is blocked off by the authorities and only accessible with special permission, although the central caverns are naturally “guarded” by a series of vertical shafts and narrow limestone tunnels. 

Advertisement

Once in the depths of the cavern, the air contains less than half of the amount of oxygen found in open air and is brimming with high levels of carbon dioxide and hydrogen sulfide. It is also pitch black and hasn’t seen a beam of sunlight for millions of years.

Thanks to this cocktail of super-harsh conditions, the site has proved to be a goldmine for biologists.  One of the first attempts to document this bizarre ecosystem can be found in a paper written in 1996 by a trio of biologists from the University of Cincinnati and published in the journal Science.

Three scientists with flashlights exploring the Movile cave in Roman.
Scientists exploring the Movile cave in 2020. Image credit: Mihai Baciu, GESS LAB, Mangalia (CC-BY 4.0)

Within this harsh environment, life seems to be booming. In the 1996 study, the three scientists identified 48 species – 33 of which were totally unique to this one cave. Along with species of spider, pseudoscorpion, woodlice, centipede, later studies have also found that leeches, snails, and many other species inhabit the caverns.

Advertisement

Most of the teeny creatures in the cave have no vision and lack pigment. After all, who needs sight or to look pretty in the pitch black? They’re also, on the whole, a spindly bunch, with extra-long limbs and antennae that help them navigate in the darkness.

As if this cave was not alien enough, it was the first land-based ecosystem to be discovered that relies on chemosynthetic bacteria. Most ecosystems require photosynthesis to harness energy from sunlight. However, since there’s no natural light in the cave, the bacteria need to get their energy and carbon directly from chemical reactions, such as the oxidation of sulfide or the oxidation of ammonium.

In this sense, the Movile Cave is more comparable to the freaky ecosystems we find living in extreme deep sea environments near hydrothermal vents.

Advertisement

“The Movile Cave system is similar to deep sea vents in having a chemoautotrophic food base and a diverse biota. However, the cave system appears to lack the symbioses between chemo-autotrophic microbes and animals so characteristic of deep sea vent communities,” the researchers from the University of Cincinnati conclude in the 1996 Science paper.

There are still many mysteries that lie deep within the Movile Cave. Even after decades of knowing it exists, researchers believe there are still many more inhabitants to discover, some of whom could hold insights into evolutionary biology and even the nature of life itself.

An earlier version of this article was first published in May 2016.

Deborah Bloomfield
Deborah Bloomfield

Related posts:

  1. Daimler expects Mercedes Q3 sales significantly below Q2 – report
  2. Biden’s child tax credit pays big in Republican states, popular with voters
  3. Google beefs up wildfire tracking, tree cover, and Plus Codes in Maps
  4. Artemis May Not Launch Until October After Second Attempt Scrubbed

Source Link: Bizarre Life Lurks In Movile Cave After Being Sealed For 5 Million Years

Filed Under: News

Primary Sidebar

  • “Something Unknown Is At Work Here”: Unexpected Results From NASA Mission To Deflect Asteroid
  • Dangerous Radiation Awaits Astronauts On Mars – New Mission Could Work Out Just How Much
  • A 4.9 Million-Year-Old Ecosystem Of Interconnected Worlds Is Preserved In A Tennessee Sinkhole
  • 100 Years Since The Scopes (Monkey) Trial: How Much Has Changed Since America’s “Trial Of The Century”?
  • Elephants Use All Kinds Of Gestures To Communicate – They Just Want Apples
  • NASA’s Parker Solar Probe Finds Evidence Of “Barrier” In The Sun’s 2 Million Kelvin Atmosphere
  • Watching Videos At Higher Speeds May Save Time But It Has Some Drawbacks
  • In 2008, Ukraine’s Space Agency Sent A Message To Planet Gliese 581c. It Will Arrive In 2029
  • In A First, A Robot Listened To Spoken Instructions And Performed Surgery – Just Like A Human Would
  • Newly Discovered “Bone-Digesting” Cells Help Burmese Pythons Consume Every Last Bit Of Their Prey
  • Gold Can Be Made By Scientists In A Lab – There’s Just One Problem
  • Recovery Of 24-Million-Year-Old Protein Fragments From Extinct Animal Opens “New Chapter” Of Biology
  • 6 Leading Medical Organizations Team Up To Sue RFK Jr Over COVID-19 Vaccine Policy
  • Less Ice, More Fire: Evidence Melting Glaciers Make Volcanic Eruptions More Explosive
  • This Mini Fridge-Sized Spacecraft Could Study A Time Of The Universe We’ve Never Seen Before
  • Psilocybin Shows Potential In Slowing Human Cell Aging And Increasing Lifespan In Mice
  • Blue Sharks’ Freaky Tooth-Skin Makes It Possible For Them To Change Color To Green And Even Gold
  • Summer In The Northern Hemisphere Will Be 15 Minutes Shorter Than Last Year’s
  • Your Ability To Be Funny May Not Be Inherited After All, And That’s Really Unexpected
  • New Interstellar Comet Tracked To Its Origin Region: “It’s Much Older Than The Solar System”
  • Business
  • Health
  • News
  • Science
  • Technology
  • +1 718 874 1545
  • +91 78878 22626
  • [email protected]
Office Address
Prudour Pvt. Ltd. 420 Lexington Avenue Suite 300 New York City, NY 10170.

Powered by Prudour Network

Copyrights © 2025 · Medical Market Report. All Rights Reserved.

Go to mobile version