MIZZOU NEWS FEATURE STORY

Dark Landscapes

Story by Dale Smith

Note: Story and photos were published originally in the spring 2003 issue of Mizzou Magic, the University's free science magazine for Missouri middle and junior high school students.

For years Joe Hobbs has walked and crawled and boated in caves in Madagascar, Malaysia, Central America and the United States. In some ways, many of the caves were remarkably alike. For instance, many aspects of cave wildlife are similar all over the world. He also discovered that people who live near caves mostly think of them as special places, as habitats that should be protected by law, as hallowed burial grounds and as the dwellings of important spirits. The exception to some of this, he says, is the United States.

It’s sad, but in caves here you can get away with things you couldn’t do on the surface, says Hobbs, a geographer at Mizzou. “People party in caves. We may even call them ‘party caves.’ They break up formations, write on the walls, shoot bats, all kinds of odd behavior.” Caves here are thought of as earthly, dark, damp and weirdly different. To many Americans, he says, the idea of respecting a cave’s delicate ecosystem seems a bit odd.

The big differences between attitudes here and elsewhere is part of what makes Hobbs’ investigations of caves so curious.

This formation in Missouri's Devil's Icebox is called "the waterfall." It formed as calcium dripped down the wall and hardened. When Hobbs leads tours of the cave, he plays a little game by leading groups to a dead-end passage. When people ask why they've come this way, he tells them to turn around. The room fills with "oohs" and "ahs" as they first see the waterfall. Photo by Joe Hobbs

Karst Caves Beyond the Dark Continent

In the year 2000, Hobbs traveled to Madagascar, a large island located off the far shores of southern Africa. Hobbs says that a region there called the Ankarana holds a limestone mountain range that’s “honeycombed with caverns, sinkholes and canyons formed by faulting and the collapse of ancient cave passages.” This is karst landscape. It forms when carbon dioxide from the decay of leaves and other matter forms a weak acid with water and percolates down through the limestone, dissolving the rock as it goes. (Missouri is one of the best karst regions in the world.)

This process creates caves and a number of other formations. For example, sinkholes are literally holes in the ground that connect to underground passages. Losing streams are flows of water that suddenly go underground. Stalactites are cone-shaped forms that hang from cave ceilings, and stalagmites are forms that rise from cave floors.

Wildlife: Pale Yet Potentially Deadly

Large hills made of guano, or bat droppings, look like sand dunes, and they sometimes stink, Hobbs says. "The older guano is soft and fluffy. The fresher parts are wet and seething with bugs." He recommends walking only on the flat tops of the dunes. One false step on the sloping sides, he says, and you can slip down a giant pile of poop. Photo by Joe Hobbs

In Madagascar during the dry season, much of the surface water dries up. But underground water remains in streams that flow in caves. During this time, crocodiles often retreat far into caves because they need watery habitat. “It was interesting to see crocodile tracks a 15 minutes’ walk inside of the cave,” Hobbs says. “These crocs can hear their prey and snap it up in total darkness.”

Guano, or bat droppings, was everywhere. “I walked on guano dune fields 75 yards long and real deep. These are big hills,” he says. The guano, which feels something like sand to walk on, was crawling with insects and arachnids.

Hobbs describes key parts of a common food chain in caves. It goes something like this:

Bats bring in much of the food found in caves. They roost in caves but must leave to hunt insects. In the cave, their guano falls to the floor and lands among droppings, nesting materials from other animals, and whatever else is there. The next link in the food chain is the fungi and microscopic organisms that break down guano and other organic material. Then beetles feed on the fungus and microbes. Frogs prey on the beetles. Crayfish prey on the frogs. And so on it goes.

Liz Price is a world-famous caver who lives in Malaysia. She took Hobbs to a cave that millions of people visit each year. Then she pulled out a key to the gate of Dark Cave, just a few feet away. This cave, protected by the Malaysian Nature Society, is full of wildlife, including cave racer snakes such as this six-footer. Photo by Joe Hobbs

On one of Hobbs’s trips he found an unusual creature from high on the food chain. “In Malaysia, I saw a cave racer snake. It’s a constrictor. It climbs ledges up near bats in total darkness and eats them. I found one longer than I am tall, and it was very gentle when I held it. We had a nice long visit.” Hobbs says that the snake is a pale, creamy color, which is common in cave animals. Pigments that normally give skin color are of no use in caves. There’s no need for pigment to protect them from the sun or to camouflage them from predators.

A cave in another country contained a deadly beetle. “In Belize, the caves had assassin beetles,” Hobbs says. “They come up on you and inject a substance into you that can cause Chagas disease, which is a serious heart problem.

Why Caves Are Special

The fact that caves are so well-cared-for in other parts of the world allows a rich range of animals and plants to thrive. But it doesn’t explain why inhabitants of other places think more highly of caves than Americans do.

Caves mean different things to different people, Hobbs says. “There are 17 or 18 major ethnic groups in Madagascar, and their taboos [things you’re not supposed to do] about caves differ. Some people will eat bats and eels from caves. Others won’t eat those animals, but they will eat crocodiles.”

But what’s more important, Hobbs says, is that the people of Madagascar (Malagasies) think of caves mainly as homes of spirits. They believe that the spirits of their ancestors and also genies of earth, air, fire and water often live in caves. In the opposite of taboos, there are also many kinds of offerings that people believe they should make in caves to thank spirits or ask for help. So they respect caves as we might respect a family cemetery.

A Malagasy guide led Hobbs to this skeleton. "I pestered him for days to see some cave burials," Hobbs says. The guide refused at first because other foreigners had taken things from these special places. After a few days of exploring with Hobbs, the guide trusted him not to steal the bones. "I finally wore him down," Hobbs says. Photo by Joe Hobbs

On one trip, Hobbs asked his Malagasy guide to lead him to places where people were buried in caves. They came upon a pile of bones with a small bowl near the skull. “People say this was a man who died during a civil war, when many people hid in caves for safety. Some had to hide so long that they starved in there.” Hobbs says the corpse was stripped by insects.

Near the skeleton’s head, the offering bowl contained money that had begun to disintegrate, but marauding beetles weren’t to blame this time. It had simply been there so long that it started to rot. “That shows how serious the taboo is against disturbing these graves,” Hobbs says. “Even in a country like Madagascar where there is very little money, nobody has touched that cash for at least a couple of years.”

Hobbs once went to see a local king to ask whether he could see certain caves with people buried in them. “When I asked him, he just laughed and said, ‘Even I couldn’t go in those caves now.’ ” It simply wasn’t allowed until the right moment. He invited Hobbs to come back a year or so later when the pilgrimage to pay respect to those royal remains would be held. “These and other taboos are not things you can break. They control everyday life in Madagascar: what you can eat, where you can go, what people you can mix with.”

Still, at the right moment and for the right reason, people may alter caves. In Belize, Hobbs saw a formation of stalactites and stalagmites that were clipped in a
pattern that looked like a Mayan rain god called Chac. “Rather than looking to the sky for a water deity, Mayans looked down into caves, which was where they found their water.”

As for why all these peoples respect caves, Hobbs says, “They consider them portals to another world.”

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Last Update: November 15, 2007