Olm
Proteus anguinus
— Where the name comes from
Proteus is the Greek sea god who changed shape; anguinus is Latin, “snake-like”, from the slender pale body. In the Slovenian caves where it lives they call it the “human fish”, for the colour of its skin, pink as a person’s. It is the only European vertebrate wholly adapted to life in caves.
— Facts
- Group
- Amphibians · Amphibia
- Order
- Salamanders
- Habitat
- The underground waters of karst caves
- Range
- The Dinaric Alps: Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia
- Size
- 20–30 cm
- Diet
- Carnivore — small crustaceans, snails, aquatic insects
- Lifespan
- Up to 100 years
— Characteristics
- 01
It is blind: the eyes stay rudimentary beneath the skin, useless in absolute darkness.
- 02
It keeps the feathery external gills of the larval stage all its life.
- 03
It can go more than ten years without eating, so slow is its metabolism.
— What sets it apart
The olm may be the most patient animal there is: in the perpetual dark of the karst caves it lives up to a century, can fast for more than ten years at a stretch, and passes its existence almost motionless. Marked individuals have stayed in the same spot in a cave for years. It has given up eyes, light and haste: everything in it is slowed to the limit in order to survive a world where food arrives rarely and almost nothing ever happens.
