Question: Have you ever heard of Movile cave, Romania? I would like to know how do you think the life there was preserved and isolated.

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  1. Hi!
    I had actually never heard of it, but thanks for pointing this out as it sounds extremely interesting!
    The fact that the cave has been completely sealed from the external environment for the last 5-6 million years is amazing and it looks like incredible species have developed in there.
    I find the development of life in extreme environments extremely interesting. For example there are a lot of organisms that can leave without oxygen or light…many more than we would imagine!
    The other fascinating thing for me is the fact that apparently this cave became isolated during the time period that I am studying in my PhD (it’s called late Miocene) and I wonder if this may have been linked to the tectonic movements that happened at that time, which for example also caused the isolation of the Black Sea.
    Sorry that I can’t give you more answers, but I also hope that someone else knows more about it!

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  2. I had never heard of it either! I have checked the thing in wikipedia and this is an amazing stuff!! The Earth is full of surprises.

    I cannot answer the question, sorry, I cannot even guess a solution. But thank you to point out a great scientific topic as this one!!

    Cheers!

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  3. Hi there!

    That is a really amazing cave! I hadn’t heart of it before, thanks for showing us this fascinating cave!

    Actually, I don’t know the geologic history of the cave. But I could imagine that the conditions like the air and water have changed very slowly. And in fact slowly enough for some of the animals that live down there to adapt and slowly evolve into specialized lifeforms.

    Really great!

    All the best,
    Andi

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  4. Thank you for giving me something new to find out about! 🙂

    I have read a little bit and it says that all the creatures in the cave (including spiders – euch!) survive through chemosynthesis instead of photosynthesis… so that means that instead of making energy from the sun, they make it from chemicals they have in the cave. I’m not sure how the cave formed or became so isolated, but the creatures in there have evolved and adapted over time to survive which is amazing!

    have you been to the cave or did you learn about it at school?

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