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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
Environment
Pablo Sinovas

I discovered three new geckos in Cambodia’s limestone caves – and that’s not all we found

A man wearing a head torch crouches in a cave, a small snake winding around his fingers.
Pablo Sinovas holding a young reticulated python (Malayopython reticulatus). They are the longest snakes in the world and favour the caves and fissures of karst landscapes. Photograph: Manita Hem/Fauna & Flora

It can be daunting entering a cave. It is an underground world that possibly hasn’t been explored before. The first smell that hits you is guano (or bat poo). Some of these caves host millions of bats – you can hear them chirping above, hanging in the darkness, and occasionally flying around. It always seems like night-time inside a cave because it’s pitch black.

The walls are covered in interesting creatures such as tailless whip scorpions, which look like a cross between a spider and crab (they look dangerous, but are not), as well as millipedes and centipedes. The whole ecosystem feeds off guano, dead bats, or any dead animals on the ground. It’s not for the faint-hearted.

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