Doesn’t Matter Size but Persistence and Techniques: Rich Cave-Dwelling Fauna from the Epikarst Cave Velika Pasica (Slovenia, Europe) with Some Comments on Its Ecology and Evolution

Velika Pasica Cave, 105 m long, 12 m deep, at an elevation of 670 m, situated in the central Slovenia (Europe) has only two to seven meters of thick roof and four permanent trickles from the epikarst zone. From this cave was described the second troglobitic beetle, Anophthalmus hirtus Sturm, 1853. It was about twenty years after the first species, Leptodirus hochenwarti Schmidt, 1832, was described from the cave Postojnska Jama (Slovenia). In the next decades nine more terrestrial species and subspecies were described from the cave belonging to groups Mollusca, Pseudoscorpiones, Collembola and Coleoptera. After 2000, intensive research of the pools and trickles revealed rich aquatic fauna, resulting in the description of four new species of Copepoda and two not yet determined epibiotic protozoans invading them. A complete list of terrestrial and aquatic fauna from the cave has never been published. To fill the gap, data from the literature as well as data from intensive field work in 2019 are presented here. Ninety three terrestrial and 36 aquatic taxa were recorded from the cave so far. Twenty nine aquatic (including two epibionts) and 18 terrestrial species are strict cave-dwelling organisms.