The creatures that time forgot

The cave amphipod norcapensis mandibulis, an endemic genus
known from only four caves at an altitude of about
200 metres in Cape Range, Western Australia.  

Beneath the very feet of Australians lives a mysterious group of animals known as stygofauna. Named after the River Styx, where dead souls cross from Earth to Hades in Greek mythology, these little creatures dwell in perpetual darkness, in groundwater, and were long thought to be rare in Australia. Only in the last two decades has the startling richness and strangeness of this subterranean life come to light.

''It's almost like when Captain Cook first reached our shores and saw kangaroos,'' say professors Craig Simmons and Peter Cook, of the National Centre for Groundwater Research and Training. ''We're aware that these strange creatures exist but we are discovering new ones all the time, and we still know little of what they do.''

Simmons says: ''These little Australians are really just becoming known to science, and they continually surprise us with their diversity and quaint characteristics. So far as the public is concerned, we've barely begun to explore this fascinating underground world of curious creatures.''

Source: Canberra Times