Most animals have times of plenty and times of famine. Some habitats in our desert Southwest, though, fall pretty much into the category of constant famine, famine entirely beyond their control. These are the animals living in the many caverns so common in our limestone mountains. Animals living in the depths have two potential sources of food: each other and from the surface.
The basic difficulty in being a troglodyte, living in the bowels of the
earth, is that, with rare exceptions, all energy necessarily comes from without. And
that pretty much means material washed in or brought in by other animals. An occasional
dead bat, for example, is a prize beyond comparison. How, then, do these dwellers of
darkness manage to survive? Mostly, by being frugal. A low metabolic rate and, through
the eons, the loss of superfluous parts such as eyes, do wonders for survival. The term
troglodyte sometimes is applied to those humans who prefer to remain in intellectual
darkness, without change; how ironic, when cave troglodytes have successfully evolved
to meet their new conditions!
Contributor: Arthur H. Harris, Laboratory for Environmental Biology, Centennial Museum, University of Texas at El Paso.
Desert Diary is a joint production of the Centennial Museum and KTEP National Public Radio at the University of Texas at El Paso.