Cannelton Elementary Club
standing at the opening of Big Wyandotte Cave
Dr. McCreedy shows
us that this gate keeps people out of the
rest of the cave where most of the
Indiana bats and other bats hibernate for
the winter. It has enough opening to
allow the bats to fly easily through. It
also allows the cave to breathe.
The ceiling had many
areas that were cracked. Dr. McCreedy
told us that bats like to hold onto these
cracks when they sleep. They like to hang
there toward the center of the ceiling
rather than the edges so that predators
such as raccoons cannot reach them.
Here you can see
black spots on the sides and floor of the
cave. These are called guano. Guano is
bat waste or bat droppings. Guano is
important for caves because it gives food
for cave plants and insects like
crickets.
Here we are leaving
Big Wyandotte to go to the Small
Wyandotte cave.
This is one of the
entrances to the smaller cave. We could
not go far in this cave either because
there was a spot on the cave floor that
was damaged due to the 10 inch rain there
in early September. That spot has been
repaired now by the Indiana
Karst Conservancy.
Cave crickets can be
seen on the ceiling!
Soon we saw more than just crickets!
