This fantastic creature cen be seen in the Postojna Cave …

Thursday, 28th March 2024

Comment on Can you believe this Animal really exists – OLM !!! 😉 by Magda.

This fantastic creature cen be seen in the Postojna Cave in Slovenia. Amazing, both the cave and the olm, also called “the human fish”. Once people believed they were dragon’s offspring.

Magda Also Commented

Can you believe this Animal really exists – OLM !!! 😉
Hi Georgi,
Postojna is just 50 km from Ljubljana (30 minutes drive). Let me know when you are in Slovenia.
Rgds, Magda


Can you believe this Animal really exists – OLM !!! 😉
Yes, I am from Slo. I live near the Postojna Cave, where these “little dragons”can be viewed during a tourist trip through the cave. Ha, ha.
Probably you’ll like more detalied description of “Proteus anguinus”.

Proteus anguinus is a tailed, amphibian “human” fish up to 30 cm long, the colour of human skin. Breathing through gills as fish do, they also possess atrophied lungs and eyes. They reproduce with eggs but also with living young. Proteus has adapted to underground life by using only an exceptionally small amount of oxygen. Because they do not alter their bodies in growth as do the majority of amphibians, naturalists have been interested in them for almost 200 years. Initially the human fish was considered to be the progeny of the dragon. Three hundred years ago Valvasor reported very seriously about these rumours and that some farmer had even showed him a captured and killed specimen of such a dragon. After serious and learned biologists such as Laurenti in 1768 had described Proteus, it was a long while before anyone could decide where to classify it in the animal world. The great Linnaeus was convinced it was nothing other than one of the development stages of some lizard, an opinion that prevailed until the start of the 19th century, such was Linneaus’ authority. The human fish was researched in detail anew and a final confirmation given that this was a distinct species of animal. Because it really is a great anomaly and resident only in the Slovene and Dinaric Karst, it was for a time fashionable to steal these little animals and attempt to establish them in other caves in the world – without any great success because Proteus is extremely sensitive to its environment. These thefts in their own way are also a part of history, and a return to the start of speleology and speleobiology, to the cradle of our own origins and existence – and to the Slovene Karst, whose greatest jewel is the Postojna Cave.


Can you believe this Animal really exists – OLM !!! 😉
This fantastic creature cen be seen in Postojna Cave in Slovenia. Fantastic, both, the cave and the olm which is also called “human fish”. Pepole onec believed they were the dragon’s offspring!!!!


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