The Life of the Cave

This book is a part of the World Book Encyclopedia's series: Our Living World Of Nature. As with all World Book Encyclopedia publications, the quality is excellent.The authors, Mohr and Poulson, are well-know cave biologists, and this 232 page book covers the wide variety of life found in caves. The photographs are mostly in color and they are incredible! Since this book was intended for non-scientists and non-cavers, it is written with an introduction to how caves are formed and how they are explored. The book limits itself to caves and cave life of the United States. By staying within this scope, they have been able to present an excellent introduction to the subject.A wide variety of cave life is covered, including mammals (bats and rats), reptiles (snakes and turtles), insects (too numerous to list here), fish, crustaceans (crayfish and shrimp and others), and salamanders. Some of these animals live only in caves (the troglobites), some spend part of their time in caves (the trogloxenes), and some are just occacionally found in caves (the troglophiles).This is a great book and all nature-lovers will enjoy it.