Thatchfield Great Cave is a big and somewhat pretty cave with a long trunk passage sloping down. It is most famous probably for the large, scenic vertical entrance. Unfortunately, you can drive to the pit entrance and thus there is rather a lot of trash at the bottom (it could be worse).
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Here is the latest in my sporadic effort to put up pictures I've published. The National Speleological Society has made a huge effort to get much of its historical content online, and the Karst Portal is a big part of that.
So, if you have never read my account of a trip to look at cave bats in Jamaica, now is your chance! And it's actually not a bad read... Go to: http://www.karstportal.org/FileStorage/NSS_news/2005-v063-009.pdf and you can read the original article. The front cover, the back cover, and one of the full color pages in the middle are all my photos that go along with the many black and white photos in the article itself. And for fun, here is the shot I did NOT use for the cover. It just seemed that having two grown adults standing in practically sewage water covered in way stinky mud and stuff best not described in great detail...laughing at a joke one of the off-frame cavers made just wasn't the mood I was looking for. Some years ago I was in Jamaica chasing cave bats. And sat down to have a nice lunch at an outdoor restaurant. Fritters are great, and I ordered such. But...
This bat has the clunky common name of Leach's single leaf bat, and the rather more eloquent scientific name Monophyllus redmani (stress the second 'o' in Monophyllus). It is a Caribbean species, and in general a cave dweller during the days. One look at that nose puts it firmly in the nectar bat feeding regime, but the science behind the bat actually shows that it is more of a generalist. It prefers nectar, but will eat fruit, and is quite capable of catching and eating insects "on the wing" as well. This photo was taken in St. Clair Cave, Jamaica.
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Keith Christenson Wildlife Biologist Archives
September 2021
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