SOMMAIRE

In memory of Emil G. Racovitza (1868 – 1947) – his ideas reverberate in our scientific research

The ideas of E. G. Racovitza which led to the development of biospelaeology (biospeology, is the term used by Racovitza and adopted here) are reviewed. We emphasize the important research programme named Biospeologica which allowed to implement practical investigations on the subterranean animals due to enthusiastic cooperative work of many scientists

The guano holes: a new corrosion form from Natuturingam Cave (Palawan, Philippines)

A totally new corrosion form has been recently observed inside the Natuturingam cave (better known as Puerto Princesa Underground River) in Palawan (Philippines): the guano holes. They consist of perfectly rounded holes, 4–5 cm wide and up to 10–15 cm deep, developing over a flat limestone surfaces covered by a thin layer of fresh guano

New data on the biodiversity and distributional pattern of Coleoptera in the Carpathian landscape

The faunal diversity and distributional pattern of species of Coleoptera in the Carpathians is fragmentarily and disproportionally known, the Buzau Mountains being one of the very poorly investigated geographic area, from coleopterological point of view

Collembolan communities (Hexapoda: Collembola) from the Buzău Land Geopark (Buzău Mountains, Romania)

The authors present the Collembola species collected from the Buzău Land Geopark (Buzău Mountains, Romania). The uniqueness of the Buzău Land Geopark is illustrated by the presence of very rare collembolan species such as Friesea afurcata (Denis, 1926), Deutonura phlegraea (Caroli, 1910), Xenylla welchi Folsom, 1916, Desoria tigrina Nicolet, 1842, Tetracanthella transylvanica Cassagnau, 1959 and Neanura parva (Stach, 1951)

A possible case of lek demes in some troglophilic bats and interspecific relations in bat colonies from some Romanian caves?

Five bat species from the Romanian fauna shelterand hibernate in caves: Mediterranean Horseshoe Bat – Rhinolophus euryale Blasius, 1853; Mehely’s horseshoe bat – Rhinolophus mehelyi Matschie, 1901; the common bent-wing bat/Schreibers’ long-fingered bat/Schreibers’ bat – Miniopterus schreibersii (Kuhl, 1917); the long-fingered bat – Myotis capaccinii (Bonaparte 1837) and the pond bat – Myotis dasycneme (Boie, 1825)

The stone book

The aesthetic value of a wild and/or tourist cave is well known everywhere. Anyway, presently only few people are aware that caves are the most important natural laboratories, in which it is possible to complete studies and researches that, in some cases, would be impossible in any other place