cave animal

Animal that has adapted to life within caves. The chief characteristics of cave animals are reduced or absent eyes and consequently other well-developed sense organs, such as antennae and feelers, and their lack of colour. Most are predators, owing to the lack of vegetable matter in this dark habitat.

Cave-dwellers include several species of snails found in Austrian caves that have developed blindness as a result of their mode of life and a genus of small cockroaches in caves of the Philippine Islands where the females are blind and flightless. There are numerous species of cavefish including Amblyopsis, which occurs in the Mammoth Cave of Kentucky, USA. Cave-dwelling amphibians include several blind salamanders, such as the olm.