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Caverns harbour new life
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A CHINESE exploration team has found four gigantic caverns in Leye County, in Southwest China's Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, bringing to 17 the number of gigantic caverns found in the region, the Guangzhou Daily reported on Wednesday.
The cave system is the largest ever found in the world, the paper quotes experts as saying.
The largest of the 17 caverns is 613 metres deep and measures 600 metres from east to west, 420 metres from south to north, according to the report.
Botanists have discovered at the bottom of the caverns more than a thousand kinds of plants, most of which have quite unique features and are totally different from the species outside the caverns.
Two underground rivers were found with water in one river cold while the water in the other warm. Experts as yet have explanation for this phenomenon. Evolution has rendered fish living in the pitch-black caverns totally blind.
The three living creatures found in the caverns are also blind. They have transparent bodies and extremely well-developed tactile sensation. One of the cricket-shaped creatures, though blind, can leap far away when approached.
The cave group is a special kind of geologic landscape located in limestone areas.
Experts from China, Britain, Ireland, Australia and Italy argued that the cave group is qualified for listing as a United Nations World Heritage site.(Alfred Zhang)
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