Video: Island’s Unique Cave Life

In recent years scientists have discovered an amazing variety of previously unknown, cave-adapted species in Bermuda’s limestone cave systems — including some thought to have cancer-fighting properties which might be studied by medical researchers.

In this report for Discovery Canada by Bermuda Environmental Alliance founder Sangita Iyer, Texas A&M University marine biologist Dr. Tom Iliffe explains how some of these unique Bermuda species are related to similar forms from caves on opposite sides of the Atlantic. But others seem to have closer affinities to cave species from as far away as the Pacific Ocean – or even from the ocean depths.

Scientists speculate some of Bermuda’s marine cave invertebrates reached the island by way of the Gulf Stream from the Caribbean, while others may have survived on submerged and emergent seamounts along the Mid Atlantic Ridge for 100 million years. Still other species may represent the descendents of prehistoric animals which once inhabited the Tethys Sea — the global ocean which existed at the time all the Earth’s land masses were combined into one super-continent. Dr. Iliffe, once a research assistant at the Bermuda Biological Station (now the Bermuda Institute of Ocean Sciences) has been exploring Bermuda’s caves for more than 20 years.

Seventy-five aquatic cave-adapted species have been identified from Bermudian caves including 64 crustaceans, five mites, two ciliates, two gastropod molluscs and two segmented worms.  More than 150 limestone caves are known to exist in Bermuda — many of them extending down to sea level with pools allowing access to submerged networks of passages. The island’s  longest known cave, Castle Harbour’s Green Bay Cave System, is totally submerged and contains more than a mile of explored passageways.

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