olms

What might be the most fascinating fact concerning olms is the most poorly-known and least mentioned one: the 1986 discovery of a surface-dwelling olm, described in 1994 by Boris Sket and Jan Willem Arntzen.

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However, the Austrian anatomist J.N. Laurenti became very interested in olms at the same time as Scopoli (apparently because of a specimen Scopoli had sent to one of the Laurenti’s friends) and, in 1768, published the first scientific description of the species (Laurenti 1768).

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A small subpopulation of “black olms” may be a separate species requiring additional protection.

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Having said that, one of the most interesting contentions made recently about olms (Sket 1997) is that the different cave-dwelling olm populations may have evolved independently from different ancestral populations.

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Most of the features which distinguish P.a. parkelj from P.a. anguinus are plesiomorphies [= features not unique to olms, but present also in related salamanders] and hence P.a. parkelj may be the ancestor of the White olm.

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Despite their vestigial nature, the eyes of White olms are not completely useless and are able to detect light.

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Of further interest, the locality mentioned by Valvasor (1689) – the spring of Lintvern, near Vrhnika – is actually outside of the Dinaric Karst, and is unlike the other areas inhabited by olms in geology and geomorphology.

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In between Italy and Herzogovina, olms also occur in southern Slovenia, southern Croatia and parts of Bosnia.

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When I visited Postojina we were told that the olms on display were not fed both because their food proved hard to procure, and because they were quite able to survive for years without feeding.

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Because White olms produce melanin when kept in sunlight (and are thus not albinistic as sometimes implied), the difference in colour between the two forms is not unexpected.

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