Cave hair, and other mysteries

Posted by Theadora Block | Sep 17, 2019 | All Talk, Arts & Culture, Local, Outdoors, Program, Santa Cruz Naturalist | 0

Santa Cruz Naturalist

Cave hair, and other mysteries

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UC Santa Cruz Campus Natural Reserve Manager Alex Jones has seen a lot of mysterious creatures in Empire Cave: everything from aggregations of Harvestmen spiders known as “cave hair,” to pseudoscorpions and other invertebrates that are only known to live in the Porter cave system here in Santa Cruz. (He’s even found some invasive papier-mâché dolphins and pandas, but that’s another story for another time.) This week in Santa Cruz Naturalist listen to Alex and host Kelley Voss talk troglophiles, or organisms that live in caves.

About The Author

Theadora Block

Theadora Block is a Ph.D candidate at UC Santa Cruz, studying Ecology and Evolutionary Biology. While her research is focused on the social behavior of small songbirds, Theadora enjoys learning about many aspects of the natural world and sharing that with people.