The blind cave dragon, as it is called, has long endeared biologists with its unparalleled weirdness. These snake-like amphibians sport small limbs, antler-like gills set back from their long snouts and translucent, pinkish-white skin that resembles human flesh. At up to 12 inches long, they are thought to be the world’s largest cave animal. They live up to 70 years, the entirety of which they spend deep underground in the Dinaric Alps, which includes parts of Slovenia, Italy, Croatia and Herzegovina.
“I’m fascinated about their exceptional adaptation to the extreme environment of the caves,” says Gergely Balázs, a cave biology PhD student at the Eötvös Loránd University in Budapest who explores the caves where these dragons live. “And they are baby dragons, for God’s sake.”
Well, not exactly. In the past, on the odd occasion that flooding would wash one up to the surface, locals believed the unusual amphibians to be baby dragons—hence the nickname. One of the creature’s other monikers, proteus, stems from an early Greek sea god who had the ability to change shape. And while the origins of the German name (olm) are uncertain, the Slovenian name (človeška ribica) translates roughly to “human-fish.”
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“I’m fascinated about their exceptional adaptation to the extreme environment of the caves,” says Gergely Balázs, a cave biology PhD student at the Eötvös Loránd University in Budapest who explores the caves where these dragons live. “And they are baby dragons, for God’s sake.”
Well, not exactly. In the past, on the odd occasion that flooding would wash one up to the surface, locals believed the unusual amphibians to be baby dragons—hence the nickname. One of the creature’s other monikers, proteus, stems from an early Greek sea god who had the ability to change shape. And while the origins of the German name (olm) are uncertain, the Slovenian name (človeška ribica) translates roughly to “human-fish.”
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