Subterranean Fishes of the World

6335

2023

Acta Carsologica

285-290

52/2-3

Proteus anguinus (proteus) is endemic to the groundwaters of the Dinaric Karst in SE Europe. Since its underground habitat is mostly inaccessible, its exact distribution is still unknown. Until the beginning of the 19th century, human contact and acquaintance with this troglobiont and its habitat was based exclusively on specimens washed up from its subterranean habitat during floods (Aljančič et al., 2016). With advanced research technology, the opportunities to study proteus habitat and ecology have expanded. For example, it was only in 1986, when the unique black pigmented subspecies, Proteus anguinus parkelj (Sket & Arntzen, 1994) was discovered during a systematic survey of a spring exploitation (Aljančič et al., 1986). Furthermore, modern caving techniques allow exploration of greater depths and thus access to underground water courses (Koller Šarić & Kovac-Konrad, 2017). Researchers are also using other techniques, including traps and visual observation in the dark with night vision devices. More recently, forensic analysis of proteus eDNA (environmental DNA) traces released in water have been successfully used to detect proteus and reveal the extent of its range and hidden subsurface biodiversity hotspots (Gorički et al., 2017). Although the proteus habitat area in the Slovenian Dinaric Karst is considered very well explored, it still happens to discover new localities. For example, it is still common that during floods in karst areas, the rising waters wash proteus to the surface, from where they cannot return to their natural habitat, so new localities are revealed (Aljančič et al., 2016). This is also the case with the finding of proteus in the area of the Tabor Ridge near Grosuplje in central Slovenia. Based on this the present contribution is devoted to the hydrogeological and hydrological presentation of the site. As this is a new locality where proteus has previously not been sighted or otherwise known, the significance of the finding is emphasized.

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