Biospeleology

Biospeleology, speleobiology (from ancient Greek. Βίος - life , σπήλααον - cave and λόγος - teaching , science ) - a section of biology that studies caves living organisms ^[1] . For the first time about the underground fauna wrote the Jesuit Kircher. The study of underground life continued in the XVIII-XIX centuries. As a result, by the end of the XIX century, hundreds of underground life were discovered and studied. . The term “biospeleologiya” was introduced in 1903 by the French A. Virenau. The foundations of B. were created by the Romanian biologist E. Rakovita (1907), who, together with R. Genel, studied the peculiarities of the ecological conditions of caves and their influence on living organisms, the laws of evolution of underground biota, reproduction and geographical distribution of cave dwellers and others ^[1] . In 1907, E. Rakovica founded the scientific association "Biospeleologic". In the USSR, Moscow biologist Yakov Avadyevich Birshtein (1911–1970) became the founder of biospeleology. .