First cave beetle: Leptodirus hochenwartii (Postojna)
Primer coleóptero cavernícola: Leptodirus hochenwartii (Postojna)
- Date
- 1831-1832 · confidence high
- Place
- Postojna Cave, Postojna, Slovenia
- Credited to
- Luka Čeč (find) and Ferdinand J. Schmidt (description)
- Field
- Life & health
⚠️ Disputed: the sources disagree.
What was discovered
A cave guide found in 1831 a small blind, unpigmented beetle that Schmidt described in 1832. It was the first known specialised cave insect and marked the beginning of biospeleology.
It is cited as the first cave animal 'described' with the caveat of the olm, which Laurenti named in 1768 and Valvasor mentions from 1689; the beetle is the first insect. The exact date of the find (1831) comes from local tradition.
What it led to
- biospeleology as a discipline (Carniola, Postojna)
- study of cave fauna and the olm (Proteus anguinus)