A cave or cavern is a natural void in the ground, specifically a space large enough for a human to enter. Caves often form by the weathering of rock and often extend deep underground. The word cave can refer to smaller openings such as sea caves, rock shelters, and grottos, that extend a relatively short distance into the rock and they are called exogene caves. Caves which extend further underground than the opening is wide are called endogene caves.
The Paklenica karst river canyon is a national park in Croatia. It is near Starigrad, northern Dalmatia, on the southern slopes of Velebit mountain, not far from Zadar. It contains two canyons, Mala (Small) and Velika (Big) Paklenica. Today there is no water flowing through Mala Paklenica. Near the entrance to the Velika Paklenica is an artificial tunnel complex built for Josip Broz Tito during the tension between Yugoslavia and the USSR in the late 1940s and early 1950s.
Velebit is the largest, though not the highest, mountain range in Croatia. The range forms a part of the Dinaric Alps and is located along the Adriatic coast, separating it from Lika in the interior. Velebit begins in the northwest near Senj with the Vratnik mountain pass and ends 145 km to the southeast near the source of the Zrmanja river northwest of Knin.
Krubera Cave is the second-deepest-known cave on Earth, after the Veryovkina Cave. It is located in the Arabika Massif of the Gagra Range of the Western Caucasus, in the Gagra District of Abkhazia, an occupied region of Georgia.
The Northern Velebit National Park is a national park in Croatia that covers 109 km2 of the northern section of the Velebit mountains, the largest mountain range in Croatia. Because of the abundant variety of this part of the Velebit range, the area was upgraded from a nature reserve in 1999, and opened as a national park in September the same year.
A pit cave, shaft cave or vertical cave—or often simply called a pit and pothole or pot ; jama in Slavic languages scientific and colloquial vocabulary —is a type of cave which contains one or more significant vertical shafts rather than being predominantly a conventional horizontal cave passage. Pits typically form in limestone as a result of long-term erosion by water. They can be open to the surface or found deep within horizontal caves. Among cavers, a pit is a vertical drop of any depth that cannot be negotiated safely without the use of ropes or ladders.
Carychiinae is a taxonomic subfamily of minute air-breathing land snails, terrestrial pulmonate gastropod mollusks.
Zospeum is a genus of air-breathing land snails, terrestrial pulmonate gastropod mollusks in the family Ellobiidae, the salt marsh snails.
Amfora is a pit on Biokovo Mountain, in Biokovo Nature Park. The entry to the cave is in the upper parts of the mountain, c. 1000 meters from Sv. Jure peak, on the southeast slope of one of many pits of Biokovo.
Stipe Božić is a Croatian mountaineer, documentary filmmaker, photographer and writer. He is the most successful Croatian Himalayan climber. Božić completed the Seven Summits and is the second European, after Reinhold Messner, to climb the highest peak in the world, Mount Everest, twice. He has directed more than 60 documentary films, mostly related to mountains and climbing.
Uvala is originally a local toponym used by people in some regions in Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro and Serbia. In geosciences it denotes a closed karst depression, a terrain form usually of elongated or compound structure and of larger size than that of sinkholes. It is a morphological form frequently found in the outer Dinaric Alps anywhere between Slovenia and Greece, but large closed karst depressions are found on all continents in different landscapes and therefore uvala has become a globally established term. It is also used to distinguish such depressions from poljes, which are many square kilometres in size. Definitions of uvalas are often poorly empirically supported. "The coalescence of dolines" (sinkholes) is the dominant and most frequently found definition. However, because of the ongoing dissatisfaction with this definition, the term 'uvala' has often been belittled – occasionally it was even proposed that the term be given up altogether.
Zospeum tholussum or the domed land snail, is a cave-dwelling species of air-breathing land snails in the family Ellobiidae. It is a very small species, with a shell height of less than 2 mm (0.08 in) and a shell width of around 1 mm (0.04 in). Z. tholussum individuals are completely blind and possess translucent shells with five to six whorls. The second whorl of their shells has a characteristic dome-like shape. They are also extremely slow-moving and may depend on passive transportation through running water or larger animals for dispersal.
Biospeleology, also known as cave biology, is a branch of biology dedicated to the study of organisms that live in caves and are collectively referred to as troglofauna.
Baredine Cave is a geomorphologic monument of nature and the first speleologic locality and tourist cave in Istria opened for visits since 1995.
Geophilus hadesi is a species of soil centipede in the family Geophilidae, named after Hades, king of the underworld in Greek mythology. This species is found in the caves of the Velebit Mountains of Croatia and characterized by relatively elongated trunk segments and appendages, including unusually long claws of the legs. These centipedes have 33 pairs of legs and can be as long as 28 mm. Like other geophilomorhpans, this species lacks sight, has a flattened trunk, and is well adapted to underground life. Along with Geophilus persephones it is one of the only two known troglomorphic geophilomorphs and can even be found in Lukina jama, the 15th deepest cave in the world.
Erpobdella mestrovi is a species of troglobitic leech found only in deep caves in Northern Velebit, part of the Dinaric Alps of Croatia. The leech was first found in Lukina jama in 1994, which at 1431 meters deep is the deepest cave in Croatia. The leech has been found in several other caves systems in Velebit such as Slovacka jama, Olimp and Velebita, and is currently considered endemic to Croatia.
Zospeum zaldivarae is a cave-dwelling species of air-breathing land snail.
