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Cave dwelling animals show different levels of adaptations to underground environment. According to a recent classification, animals living in terrestrial subterranean habitats can be classified into 3 categories, based on their ecology: troglobionts (or troglobites): species strongly bound to subterranean habitats;
Surface-dwelling animals tend to have longer fur with a natural tendency for the nap to lie in a particular direction, but to facilitate their burrowing lifestyle, mole pelts are short and very dense and have no particular direction to the nap. This makes it easy for moles to move backwards underground, as their fur is not "brushed the wrong way".
Shifts towards an underground lifestyle also entail changes in metabolism and energetics, often in a weight-dependent manner. Sub-fossorial species weighing more than 80 grams (2.8 oz) have comparably lower basal rates [specify] than those weighing lower than 60 grams (2.1 oz). The average fossorial animal has a basal rate between 60% and 90%.
The giant tubeworms do not eat as other animals do. Instead, bacteria residing in their body in a sack-like organ turn sulfur from the water into energy for the animal.
Stick insects rely on ants to hide their eggs underground for them in safety. In the Californian desert, the blister beetle's larvae congregate on a stem and, by releasing a pheromone, attract a male digger bee on the lookout for a female. They climb aboard their visitor and eventually transfer to its mate, which will in turn unwittingly ...
Earthworms travel underground by means of waves of muscular contractions which alternately shorten and lengthen the body (peristalsis). The shortened part is anchored to the surrounding soil by tiny clawlike bristles set along its segmented length. In all the body segments except the first, last and clitellum, there is a ring of S-shaped setae ...
Only three species grow larger; two slender Ophisternon swamp eels at up to 32–36 cm (13–14 in) in standard length and a much more robust undescribed species of mahseer at 43 cm (17 in). [ 36 ] [ 37 ] The very limited food resources in the habitat likely prevents larger cavefish species from existing and also means that cavefish in general ...
In botany, stolons are plant stems which grow at the soil surface or just below ground that form adventitious roots at the nodes, and new plants from the buds. [1] [2] Stolons are often called runners. Rhizomes, in contrast, are root-like stems that may either grow horizontally at the soil surface or in other orientations underground. [1]