Croatia's Rich Underground World at Risk from Dam

A lake in a small cave, Bakar, Croatia, Dinaric Arc.  

Photo: Whitley Fund for Nature.

Spiders, scorpions, millipedes, and a pale, eyeless salamander are unlikely poster animals for a conservation campaign, but plans to wash away their habitat in the Balkans risk destroying some of the richest -- and most ancient -- cave fauna in the world. Their threatened subterranean environment is so little-explored that an acclaimed biologist working in the caves has said she usually finds a new life form on each research trip below ground.

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