Trip Date: 2024-05-08
Oresti took me to Hangklip Cave on Hangklip. We spent 3 hours looking for the cave, and found a new, 4m deep, vertical shaft while searching. The sides of the entrance are very sandy, and it looks like a potentially dangerous descent.
The Hangklip Cave was probably a large chamber that has collapsed, and there a number of entrances into the cave. A stream runs through one side of the cave.
The largest residents of the cave were a small colony of Rhinolophus and Miniopterus bats. I saw about 20 bats. Oresti said the colony was far larger on his previous visit, so the cave is probably a seasonal roost.
There were Paramelita in the stream and many Wishbone spider tunnel openings in the floor. These entrances ranged from a few millimeters in diameter to approximately 10mm.
Oresti saw small cave crickets, but I did not see them, so that will be something to search for on the next visit.
Very small, very fast mite. approx 2mm long
Shell 13mm diameter. These snails gathered around damp, but not wet soil patches.
Not sure what to make of this. The cave entrance is a large boulder collapse, and these circles are on one boulder. They all occur within about 1m square. The outer circles are about 50mm diameter. Some are a little larger.
There may be more than one species here. These paramelita occurred in streams running through the cave. There were many in the dark part of the cave. 10m further down the same steam, where the stream briefly emerges into the light, there were far fewer.
These spiders live in tube webs buried in soft, mostly dry sand. In some places there was one web visible on the surface, in other places there were around 15 webs of different sizes clustered within 40cmx40cm
Oresti's Echo Meter Touch identified these Rhinolophus as "Geoffroy's horseshoe bat". There were between 15 and 20 Rhinolophus in cave.
Small moth. Either on bat guano, or rocks under the bat roost.
Approx 10 bats. One group was roosting together with what looked like young Rhinolophus. Oresti's Echo Meter Touch identified them as Natal long-fingered bats.
This spider moulted after being captured. It looks much lighter in colour after the moult.
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