Gunther's Cavern

by Edward Etzkorn

  AIDER (or ETRIER): a 10-ounce, 5- to 6-foot long apparatus made of nylon webbing that has loops for climbing.

  AMPHIBIANS: Animals like frogs and salamanders that live under water in their early lives but develop lungs and live out of water as adults.

  ANNIE, ANNIE, ARE YOU OKAY?: Opening line in the original protocol for CPR (cardiopulmonary resuscitation), as the first step in establishing responsiveness. The original manikin used in CPR classes was called “Anne” by its manufacturers.

  ANTIPODAL POINT: The point on a sphere that is exactly opposite to a point on the other side. On Earth, the North Pole is the antipodal point to the South Pole and vice versa. The antipodal point to most places in the continental U.S is somewhere in the Indian Ocean.

  APPENDAGE: A body part that projects from a creature’s body, like an arm or a leg.

  ARACHNOCAMPA LUMINOSA: A species of gnat whose inch-long larva attaches to the ceilings of caves in New Zealand and catches prey on silky mucus threads that drop down as much as 3 feet from the ceiling of the cave. The larvae can glow for 24 hours a day.

  ASCENDER: A mechanical device that a climber clips onto a rope to help him or her climb. It is often used with an aider, a nylon-webbing apparatus five or six feet long with loops that can be climbed like a rope ladder.

  ASTHENIC: Weak or frail-looking.

  BANSHEE: A fairy woman in Irish and Scottish mythology who is said to wail when a family member is about to die.

  BREATHING OR BLOWING CAVE: A cave with two or more entrances, one higher than the other. During winter the cooler air enters the lower entrance, is warmed in the cave, and blows out of the higher entrance. In summer, the opposite happens.

  BUCCAL APPARATUS: The equivalent of the mouth and throat in tardigrades. A tardigrade eats by attaching its mouth to the microscopic plant cell or animal it plans to eat and piercing it with a stylet located alongside the mouth. The food is then sucked into the buccal apparatus and passed into the esophagus and then intestine.

  CANARY IN A MINE: Canaries were once used in coal mines to smell dangerous substances like carbon monoxide. Because the presence of carbon monoxide in a mine would kill a canary faster than it would kill a miner, canaries constituted a kind of early-warning system.

  CARABINER: (pronounced car-a-been’-er) A strong metal device, usually shaped like a “D,” used to tighten rope fast and securely for climbing or descending.

  CARDIAC BYPASS SURGERY: Heart surgery in which the heart surgeon attaches a portion of a healthy vein around a damaged part of a blood vessel in the heart’s wall. An unintended consequence of this surgery is that the nerve going to the vocal cord, or voice box, in the throat may be accidentally cut, leaving a person with permanent hoarseness.

  CARDIOVASCULAR SYSTEM: The heart and blood vessels.

  CATACOMBS: Underground passages made by humans and used for religious ceremonies or burial places. Best known are the Roman catacombs used by the early Christians.

  CATHEDRALE DE NOTRE DAME DE CHARTRES: “Cathedral of Our Lady of Chartres,” a huge cathedral in Chartres, France, built in the early 13th century.

  CAVE CRAYFISH: Crayfish nearly identical to those living above-ground, except that they are blind and colorless.

  CENTIPEDE: An arthropod (related to insects, spiders, crabs, shrimp, crayfish) with one pair of legs per body segment. Although they look like worms with legs and the name means “hundred-legged,” centipedes usually have 22 to 300 legs.

  CHASM: A deep hole or opening in the earth’s surface

  CIRCULATORY SYSTEM: The method of transporting food and oxygen throughout an organism. In people, this consists of heart and blood vessels. Because the body of a tardigrade is open to a central canal, it does not have a true circulatory system.

  COLONOSCOPY: A procedure done by a doctor specializing in disorders of the digestive system in which a long flexible tube with a light at the end is inserted into a person’s rectum to check for bowel cancer or other causes of internal bleeding.

  COLUMN: In a cave, a pillar-like formation formed by the fusion of a stalactite and its stalagmite below, the results of the stalactite’s dripping on the stalagmite for many millions of years.

  CONCAVE DISC: A circular structure whose edges curve inward toward the center. It is the opposite of a “convex” structure, whose edges curve outward.

  CORNEA: The front part of the eye.

  CROCKERY: Plates, dishes, cups and other table items, usually made of earthenware.

  CRYPTOBIOSIS: The condition in which a tardigrade, although still alive, goes into a kind of suspended animation, curled up into a tough ball or tun, with all its life processes stopped. It can regenerate within minutes to hours following the addition of water to its environment.

  DIAPER SLING: A hand-constructed device for supporting a climber’s weight, made of a long strip of nylon webbing, wrapped around a person’s waist and then passed through the legs, fastened tightly in front with a pair of carabiners.

  DIGESTIVE SYSTEM: The set of organs responsible for taking in and processing food, including the mouth (buccal apparatus in a tardigrade), throat, esophagus, stomach, small and large intestine.

  DOMINICAN HABIT: The traditional clothing of the Order of Dominican nuns, consisting of a long white gown with a black veil or headdress.

  ENTERPRISE: The starship on Star Trek.

  FISHERMAN’S KNOT (DOUBLE): A knot for joining two different ropes, made by tying a double square knot in each.

  FIXED AND DILATED: Condition of the pupils of the eye that usually indicates death. The pupils are dilated (wide open) and do not narrow when light is shone on them (fixed).

  FIXED ENVIRONMENT: An environment in which nothing comes in and nothing goes out. Because a cave is a fixed environment, anything that comes into the cave—including human beings—must leave no trace, or the chemical and biological aspects of the cave will be changed.

  FERTILE CRESCENT: Group of early civilizations in the Tigris, Euphrates, and Nile valleys in western Asia and modern-day Egypt.

  FLAGELLA (plural of FLAGELLUM): Long, hairlike structures in primitive creatures that usually help with locomotion.

  GASTROPOD: Class of animals that includes snails and slugs.

  GOTHIC: A form of architecture prominent in Europe in the 12th to 16th centuries, characterized by pointed arches and other large and very noticeable features.

  GROTTO: A portion of a cave used by humans.

  GRUBS: Larva stage of beetles.

  GUANO: The fecal matter of bats.

  HAN: Early far-advanced civilization in China.

  HEADLAMP: A battery-operated light attached to a headband that a caver wears outside his or her helmet.

  HERMAPHRODITIC: Having both male and female organs in the same animal.

  HITTITE: Early human civilization in Asia Minor, comprising most of present-day Turkey.

  IN-A-GADDA-DA-VIDA, BABY: First line of the song of the same name by Iron Butterfly from 1968. It means “In the Garden of Eden.” The song was also sung in a Simpsons episode in 2013.

  INVERTEBRATE: Any animal without a backbone, or vertebral column. Perhaps 97% of the world’s animals are invertebrates.

  IRIS: The colored part of the human eye, which regulates the size of the pupil and hence controls the amount of light that enters the eye.

  JOCULARS: As an adjective, without an “s,” it means jokingly. As a noun, the way Gunther’s mother uses it in her poetry, it is a nonsense word.

  JUNE BUG: Several species of beetles that are attracted to light and are known to bang themselves against window screens and glass while seeking it.

  LARVA, plural LARVAE: The earliest form of an insect’s life cycle after hatching from its egg. Larvae must molt, or shed their outer layer, several times in order to grow.

  LIMESTONE: Rock made up of calcium salts, especially calcium carbonate. Most formations in upstate New York caves are composed of limestone.

  LOO:
British slang for toilet or bathroom.

  METER: Basic unit of measurement in the metric system, equal to 39.37 inches.

  MILLIPEDE: An arthropod (related to insects, spiders, crabs, shrimp, crayfish) with two pairs of legs on every body segment. Although they look like worms with legs and the name mean “thousand-legged,” millipedes usually have only 34 to 400 legs.

  MODIFICATIONS: Improvements in the body of a living creature that have evolved over many thousands of years to enable them to live better in their environment.

  MOLT: The shedding of an outer layer by a creature to allow it to grow. In insects, including butterflies, the larva and pupa stage must molt several times before they can grow into adults.

  MORSE CODE: A system of electrical communication that uses dots and dashes, initially created around 1840 for use in telegraph machines, still used in types of radio communication.

  NEAPHAENOPS TELLKAMPFII: A species of blind cave beetles, usually about 5 millimeters—less than ¼ inch—long.

  NERVOUS SYSTEM: The system for transmitting sensation and pain throughout an organism, as well as directing movement. This consists of brain and nerves. Tardigrades have a three-lobed brain and a system of ganglia, or nerve bundles.

  NEURAL PATHWAYS: Nerve connections from the brain to a bodily organ.

  NICTITATING MEMBRANE: A transparent third eyelid found in amphibians, birds, reptiles, and some mammals that can be closed to protect the eye.

  OCULARS: Eyepieces or series of lenses. As Gunther’s mother uses the word, though, it is a nonsense word.

  OLFACTORY: Referring to smell.

  PARALYZED BELOW THE WAIST: A condition in which a person is unable to move any part of the body below the waist due to a severe spinal cord injury.

  PARTHENOGENESIS: The development of a new organism from an unfertilized egg.

  PHARISEE: A member of a religious sect within the early Jewish community. In the New Testament of the Bible, Jesus and the Pharisees were often at odds because of the latter’s insistence on man-made rules.

  PLANKTON: A group of millions and millions of life-forms that drift about with ocean currents and provide food for higher animals. When Gunther thinks of tardigrades as “plankton,” he is incorrect—although tardigrades are tiny creatures, they are not plankton.

  PLATO: Ancient Greek philosopher.

  PROBOSCIS: The long tubular mouthpart of many insects, used for sucking or feeding.

  PTOMAINE POISONING: An outdated term for food poisoning, based on the idea that small broken-down proteins in food, called ptomaines, caused people to get sick from food. We now know that food poisoning is caused by bacteria and viruses.

  PUFFBALL: A mushroom with a round, ball-like cap.

  PUPA: Second stage in the life cycle of an insect. The pupa usually molts several times as it grows. Its final molt allows it to turn into its adult form.

  PUPIL: The central black circle of the eye, that regulates the amount of light entering the eye. It dilates (widens) in darkness and constricts (narrows) in light.

  RAPPEL: (pronounced rap-pell’) A method of using a double rope to descend rapidly and safely from a height. It usually requires use of at least one carabiner to hold the rope and keep it from slipping.

  REGRESSED: In evolutionary terms, changed to a condition that existed in the past. Creatures in a cave live in total darkness and need no color, fur or feathers to protect them from changes in weather. Hence they have lost evolutionary improvements such as eyesight, color, and extra skin features.

  REVERSE EVOLUTION: Ordinarily, evolution results in some advantage for a living creature. In reverse evolution, creatures that have lived many generations in total darkness lose features they once had, like sight and skin color, that have no value within a cave.

  ROTIFERS: A group of microscopic and near-microscopic animals that live in water and form one component of plankton.

  RUNNER: A loop of nylon webbing that is sewn or tied end-to-end and can be attached to a tree, rock, or other unmovable object and used to attach a climbing rope.

  SALAMANDER: A 4-inch-long creature that lives near streams and lakes. Although salamanders have 4 legs and look like lizards, they are amphibians and related to frogs. Cave salamanders that have lived without light for many generations lose their color and the use of their eyes.

  SENSEI: A Japanese word referring to a teacher or other person of authority, commonly used in the Martial Arts.

  SERENGETI PLAIN: A beautiful plain in Tanzania, Africa, home to over two million animals and believed to be the origin of the earliest ancestors of Homo sapiens.

  SHUNT: An artificial tube placed between parts of the body to allow fluid to pass from one part to the other. There is no such thing as a liver shunt as announced by Cathy Sheffield.

  SLING: A piece of webbing wrapped in such a way as to support a part of the body.

  SOO-EE: High-pitched call used by people in the rural United States to call pigs.

  SPACE BLANKET: A thin, lightweight blanket that helps to retain the body’s heat and can be folded into a very small package.

  SPELEOTHEM: A cave formation, such as stalactites, stalagmites, and columns.

  SPRINGTAIL: A cricket-like creature about 6 millimeters, or ¼ inch, long, whose long back legs allow it to jump or spring long distances.

  STALACTITE: An icicle-like formation formed by water dripping over centuries from the ceiling of a cave. Most stalactites in caves are made of limestone.

  STALAGMITE: The upside-down icicle-like formation growing upward from the floor of a cave formed over centuries by the constant drip of a stalactite above it.

  STROKE: A devastating event in a person’s life caused by a blood clot in a blood vessel in the brain. The clot cuts off blood circulation to a part of the brain, resulting in the person being unable to use the part of the body controlled by that part of the brain, often the left or right arm and leg.

  STYLET: A knifelike organ alongside a tardigrade’s mouth that allows it to pierce the cell wall of a victim.

  SUMER or SUMERIAN: Ancient civilization (about 4000 years B.C.) in Mesopotamia, in the area of modern-day Iraq.

  SUTURE: To sew parts of the body back together after a surgical operation or an injury.

  SYMMETRICAL: The same on one side as the other. Most creatures in our world, people included, show right to left symmetry.

  TARDIGRADE: An eight-legged animal ranging from 0.3 millimeter to 1.2 millimeters in size (about the size of a period or comma on this page). Tardigrades live either in water or on land, but even on land, they must live close to water. Considering their size, they have well-developed organ systems. They have eye spots but no seeing eyes. They may be either male or female, but some species are hermaphrodites (they contain both male and female organs in the same animal). They may live almost anywhere on earth, including the equator, Antarctica, and the tops of the highest mountains. Most eat microscopic plants, but some eat microscopic animals or even other tardigrades. For study, the easiest place to find them is in mosses, lichens, or algae. If faced with a situation they cannot deal with (like extreme dryness) they have the ability to undergo cryptobiosis, a condition in which although they are still alive, their bodily processes cease and they become a dry ball or tun. This state of suspended animation can be reversed by the addition of water to their environment.

  THE SWAMP: In the TV show M*A*S*H from the 1970’s, the hut where the show’s surgeons lived.

  TROGLODYTES: Creatures that spend all their lives in the dark.

  TUN: The tough roundish ball formed by a tardigrade in cryptobiosis or suspended animation.

  WATER BEAR: An affectionate nickname for tardigrades, given them because of their resemblance under the microscope to cute teddy bears.

  WEBBING: Very strong material, usually nylon or another man-made fabric, about an inch wide, that can be used to make runners, slings, and aiders that will be strong enough to support the weight of a climber
.

  WESTWARD HO: Expression used by American pioneers in the 19th century announcing their intention to head west.

  YELLOW RIVER BASIN: The birthplace of early Chinese civilization; the Yellow River is the third-largest river in China.