Human race spent thousands of years inside caves in the process of evolution. The caves not only provides shelter to lives, but also home to various unique species till now. There are number of gigantic caves around the earth that have self sustaining ecosystem and create a different world inside themselves. In the modern world, the discovery of such cave is always a thrilling story, as they are normally hidden in the remote jungles or mountains lying unknowingly to humans preserving a world inside it untouched for thousands, may be millions of years.

The gigantic Hang Son Doong Cave - Coutesy NationalGeographic

Almost a year back such a spectecular cave was discovered in the Annamite Mountains of Vietnam. This cave is so huge in size that it contains a river, a  complete jungle and even its own thin clouds making the other side of the cave out of sight at times. It is large enough to accomodate a whole city with skyscrapper inside it. In fact we are talking about the largest cave passage in the world here, named as Hang Son Doong.  For decades, geologists have doubted that Vietnam could be home to some of the world’s most spectacular caves. But a large number of them were unexlored. British scientists from the British Cave Research Association, led by Howard and Deb Limbert, are the first to explore the cave. The cave is named as Hang Son Doong, means mountain river cave. Though credit of bringing the largest cave to the outside world goes to Howard and Limbert, yet the actual discovery credit of the cave goes to a local man named Hồ-Khanh.

Ho Khanh’s family lived in a nearby village and he has long story to tell about the discovery of the cave.

“I was born into a poor family. My father died, and my family had no rice fields, so I had to go to the jungle for work to support my family. Over a period of 13 years, I learnt the location of many caves in the areas I passed through.

Mr Khanh - The discoverer of the cave

In March 2009 the expedition returned to Son Trach. On the first trip I really wanted to take Mr. Howard to the new cave, but another team came. At that time I was worried in case the cave was dry and not very long. But thank god, in this trip the cave length was measured at about 5k, and there was a large subterranean river. The explorers realized that this could be the largest cave passage in the world.

I believe that I have made them all especially Mr. Howard very pleased, because this is an important cave which connects the Doong area with the Tra Anh area.”

-courtesy vietnamcaves.com

So is the story of discovery of the largest cave passage in the world. The Son Doong cave measures 262 feet by 262 feet (80 meters by 80 meters) and at least 2.8 miles (4.5 kilometers) deep. The biggest chamber of Son Doong is over five kilometers in length, 200 meters high and 150 meters wide. This discovery overtook the size of Deer Cave, which held the record of the largest cave passage previously. Deer Cave in Malaysia, is 300 feet by 300 feet (91 m by 91 m) in parts, but is only about a mile (1.6 km) long.

 

Hang Son Doong - Couresy NationaGeographic

 

The Son Doong cave is located in in Phong Nha-Ke Bang National Park of Vietnam, near the Laos-Vietnam border. Phong Nha-Ke Bang area is noted for its cave and grotto systems as it is composed of 300 caves and grottos with a total length of about 70 km, of which only 20 have been surveyed by Vietnamese and British scientists. It is currently a national park and UNESCO World Heritage Site.

“This illustrates how much we have to learn about even the large, common inhabitants of deep pelagic communities,” said Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute in Massachusetts and the Scripps Institute of Oceanography.

“When the image came onto the screen, everyone said, Oh my gosh, what’s that?” recalled marine zoologist Laurence Madin of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Massachusetts.

“This is an intermediate species between the benthic ancestors — things living in the mud on the seafloor — and other species that live in the water column but never go to the floor,”  said Karen Osborn, an evolutionary biologist at the University of California, Santa Cruz. ”I was really excited,” Osborn added,  “It was so tantalizing because the animal was so different from anything previously described, with the fantastic headgear. I would estimate that when exploring the deep water column, more than half the animals we see are undescribed or new to science.”

“Squidworm

These are some of the examples of excitements among the scientists after the discovery of a new species under ocean water named as Squidworm. This species is neither a squid nor a worm. It is an especially exciting discovery because the species could represent a missing link, or transitional species.

Scientists at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute and the University of California, Santa Cruz have recently discovered the squidworm at around 3000 meters under ocean water, just above the ocean floor. The scientists used a remotely operated submersible robot to find squid. The species is named asTeuthidodrilus samae, or “squid worm of the Sama”—the Sama being a culture with ties to Philippine islands not far from the discovery site.

The Squidworm grows up to 9.4 centimeters (3.7 inches) in length. Swimming upright, it navigates by moving two body-length rows of thin, paddle-shaped protrusions that cascade like dominoes. It has ten tentacles as long or longer than its body stick out of its head, along with six pairs of curved nuchal organs that allow the squidworm to taste and smell underwater.

The Cardamom Mountains rain forests are one of the largest, isolated and still mostly unexplored forests in southeast  Asia. This mountain range has been carefully keeping species and lives unkonown to outside world due to lack of proper research. But there are recent efforts in this direction by researchers and sceintists to discover this hidden treasure of nature. One such successful mission is reported yesterday by Fauna and Flora International (FFI). The organization has discovered a new unique species which is a carnivorous pitcher plant. It is named as “Nepenthes holdenii“.

Nepenthes Holdenii

In 2008, British photographer and biologist, Jeremy Holden,contacted the first author to study an apparently undiagnosed Nepenthes that he observed on an isolated peak from the Cardamom Mountains in Cambodia. This taxon was first observed during field surveys conducted for Fauna & Flora International (FFI) in the Phnom Samkos Wildlife Sanctuary in February 2006. Populations were seen in four different locations around a single mountain system, all in dry, steep terrain characterised by open areas of tall grasses and pine trees at 600-750 meters above sea level. In August 2009, French botanist F.S. Mey visited Cambodia together with J. Holden in order to study and collect the unidentified Nepenthes. During this expedition, a second population of the taxon was found on a neighbouring peak. Studies of the two populations in situ emonstrated that the taxon possesses a unique combination of features that distinguish it from all other known Nepenthes taxa. Comparison of wild plants and herbarium material confirmed that this is an undescribed taxon. It appears to belong to a group of closely  related Indochinese species that share similar ecological habitats. This new species is named as ‘Nepenthes holdenii’. The description of the new taxon Nepenthes holdenii brings the number of Cambodian Nepenthes species to five.

The large red and green pitchers that characterize ‘Nepenthes holdenii’ are actually modified leaves designed to capture and digest insects. The pitchers can reach up to 30 centimeters long. The carnivorous strategy allows the plants to gain additional nutrients and flourish in otherwise impoverished soils. A further unusual adaptation seen in this new species is its ability to cope with fire and extended periods of drought. Cambodia’s dry season causes forests to desiccate and forest fires are common. Nepenthes holdenii exploits the clearings caused by these regular blazes by producing a large underground tuber which sends up a new pitcher- bearing vine after the fires have passed.

This discovery has once more proved a need of deeper research into the Cardamom Mountains to find the treasure of biodiversity.