Nature & Environment

'Baby dragon' hatches out in Slovenia cave

By T.K. Randall
June 2, 2016 ·  14 comments

The olm spends its entire life in complete darkness. Image Credit: CC BY-SA 3.0 Arne Hodalic Once believed to be real-life dragons, these peculiar creatures have adapted perfectly to living in complete darkness and have eked out an existence underground for millions of years.

With their long snake-like bodies, olms live and hunt exclusively in subterranean pools and rivers such as those found in Postojna cave around 30 miles southwest of Slovenia's capital Ljubljana.

Because they breed only once every decade, olm eggs are a rare spectacle indeed and given that only two out of every 500 eggs will actually hatch, witnessing a baby olm emerge is even rarer still.This however was the sight that greeted a group of lucky visitors to Postojna cave this week as one of the eggs being carefully monitored there actually hatched out on Tuesday.

There is even a chance that more of the eggs could hatch out in the near future.

"Although both science and researchers' previous experience gave us almost zero chance that the drama unfolding in the cave aquarium before our very eyes would have a happy ending... we had faith it would happen," cave officials said in a statement.

Source: Seeker.com | Comments (14)

Tags: Olm, Salamander, Cave