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Cave and Stream Biota documented in Waterfall Hollow

June 8th, 2003

Here is an account of the cave and stream biota encountered by Linda Baker, Bryan Taylor, and myself, James Greene, while visiting Waterfall Hollow on June 8th, 2003. This was the first really warm, sunny, "summer" feeling day we have had during this very wet and unusually cold spring of 2003. We hiked up the creek bed deep into the hollow and then climbed the side of the escarpment to the top of the waterfall. We walked in the stream all the way to the cave entrance. The cave itself contains over 500 feet of walking sized stream passage. It is intersected north and south by a canyon passage that quickly chokes out with flowstone on the north side and continues south as beautiful canyon passage that gradually narrows to a too tight squeeze. The south canyon passage contains perhaps 600 more feet. Crickets were noted in the south canyon passage. No biota was noted in the north canyon, but it is very wet and can only be easily explored for about 35 feet.

I have used my own photos and narratives when possible and I borrowed the rest from the Internet. I have provided sources and photo credits wherever possible.

Many thanks to Bill Elliott and Jeff Briggler of The Missouri Department of Conservation and Daniel Combs of Tennessee Technological University for their help in identification of the salamander Gyrinophilus porphyriticus porphyriticus. Their prompt and accurate responses proved immensely helpful and saved me quite a bit of research time.

This is the namesake waterfall that gives the hollow its name. Notice the rainbow across the middle of the fall. Photo by James Greene, 2003.

The crew present on the trip. From left to right are Linda Baker, Little Dog, Bryan Taylor, and myself, James Greene. Photos by James Greene and Linda Baker, respectively, 2003.

This is the first critter we ran into inside the cave. Interestingly, I had a conversation with the landowner, who is a park ranger, and Gerald Moni, the chairperson of the Tennessee Cave Survey that very morning noting how none of us had ever seen any cave adapted crayfish in the cave. Then, right off the bat we found two. Photo by James Greene, 2003.

This is another photo of the same crayfish as above. It is in the genus Orconectes, and probably the species australis australis (thanks to Dr. Joe Douglas for his assistance with crayfish identification and distributions). Photo by James Greene, 2003.

This salamander was in the same pool as the crayfish above. I was very interested because I have never seen one before. It looks a lot like the threatened Tennessee Cave Salamander (Gyrinophilus palleucus) except it is noticeably darker colored and it lacks the external gills found on the G. palleucus. This salamander is about 6 inches long. Photo by James Greene, 2003.

This is a photo of the threatened Tennessee Cave Salamander (Gyrinophilus palleucus). Notice the similarities to the salamander in the photo above, except for the obvious lack of gills and darker coloration of the non-cave adapted species above. This photo taken from The Tennessee State Amphibian web site. The color patterns, the shape of the body and head, the eyes, the legs, feet, and aquatic adapted tail are almost exactly the same. Both of these salamanders are lung less. The G. palleucus has external gills for breathing underwater and the G. porphyriticus porphyriticus gets oxygen through its skin. G. porphyriticus porphyriticus is able to leave the water as long as it stays very moist. G. palleucus lives exclusively in water.

This is another photo of the salamander found in the cave at Waterfall Hollow. I sent copies of these photos to Dr. Bill Elliott and his colleague Jeff Briggler, both of the Missouri Department of Conservation and also to Dr. Daniel Combs, of Tennesse Technological University. They identified it as Gyrinophilus porphyriticus porphyriticus. The species is commonly known as a Spring Salamander and has at least four subspecies. The subspecies p. porphyriticus is the only one known to live in Tennessee and is known to occasionally inhabit caves. {Many, many thanks to Dr. Elliot, Mr. Briggler, and Dr. Combs who provided all the details regarding this salamander.} Photo by James Greene, 2003.

This is a Northern Ringneck snake (Diadophis punctatus) very similar to the one that we discovered in the creek bed on the way out of the hollow. Photo by John White. There is a nice write up about this snake to be found here.

This Ringneck is about the same size as the one that we saw. Photo taken from this web site.

A close-up of the ring that gives the Ringneck its name. "Ringneck snakes rarely bite when picked up, but will curl their tails to form a corkscrew that displays the brightly colored underside." Quotated text taken from the University of Georgia web site. I do not have credit for the photograph.

A Slimy Salamander (Plethodon glutinosus) about 1.5 inches long was seen very close to the Ring Neck snake. It is very likely that the snake was attempting to feed on the salamander. Ringnecks are known to feed on these salamanders, but the snake that we saw was quite small and may have overshot his abilities thinking he could eat the salamander near him. But perhaps he did not as the next photo shows. A nice write-up with several photos are available at the Northern Prairie Wildlife Research Center web site. Photo by Jeff LeClere.

This is a photo of a Ring Neck snake eating a slimy salamander. Ringnecks use a constriction technique when restraining and eating their prey although the technique is not shown here. This photo demonstrates that a small Ringneck can eat quite a large salamander (respectively as both are quite small). Photo taken from the Amphibians and Reptiles of North Carolina web site.

Cave Crickets were noted in several locations in the south canyon passage. They were of the genus Hadenoecus. I am not certain of the species. This photo was taken in a cave located about four hollows up the western escarpment of the Cumberland Plateau from Waterfall Hollow. Photo by James Greene, 2003.

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