Abstract
Located in Northern Pyrenees, in the Arbas massif, France, the system of the Coume Ouarnède, also known as Réseau Félix Trombe—Henne Morte, is the longest and the most complex cave system of France. The system, developed in massive Mesozoic limestone, has two distinct resurgences. Despite relatively limited sampling, its subterranean fauna is rich, composed of a number of local endemics, terrestrial as well as aquatic, including two remarkable relictual species, Arbasus caecus (Simon, 1911) and Tritomurus falcifer Cassagnau, 1958. With 38 stygobiotic and troglobiotic species recorded so far, the Coume Ouarnède system is the second richest subterranean hotspot in France and the first one in Pyrenees. This species richness is, however, expected to increase because several taxonomic groups, like Ostracoda, as well as important subterranean habitats, like MSS (“Milieu Souterrain Superficiel”), have not been considered so far in inventories. Similar levels of subterranean biodiversity are expected to occur in less-sampled karsts of central and western Pyrenees.
Highlights
Stretching at the border between France and Spain, the Pyrenees are known as one of the subterranean hotspots of the world [1]
Proasellus racovitzai was described from the Goueil di Her where it coexists with Stenasellus virei hussoni
The species is the only troglobiont of the Coume Ouarnède system to live in hygropetric habitats [57], where it moves relatively slowly, often associated to Aphaenops ehlersi; though equipped with a long furca, “the large Collembola, special to” the Goueil di Her “jump with difficulty and prefer to run away: they walk by sweeping the ground with their very long antennae which strike the roughness of the ground while folding back.” [40]
Summary
Stretching at the border between France and Spain, the Pyrenees are known as one of the subterranean hotspots of the world [1]. The main cave system of the massif is the Réseau Félix Trombe—Henne Morte, from the name of the French engineer and caver Félix Trombe, known for his pioneer works on solar energy. This large system is commonly called Coume Ouarnède or Coumo d’Hyouernedo by cavers. It was explored for years by the famous speleologist Norbert Casteret who often referred to these explorations in his writings (see [3] for a list of references) and remains a well-known cave system for speleologists worldwide.
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