SHUANGHE Cave in Guizhou Province — which was named the longest cave in Asia in March — houses a trove of wonders, including an endangered lizard species, which is 10 centimeters long, fossils of vertebrates such as giant pandas and what appear to be the remains of rhinoceros, saber-tooth tigers and elephants.

The slithery lizard, which was found in an underground river in a major branch of the cave, appears similar to a giant salamander. A full understanding of the new species will require further research by scientists.

Unlike scientific surveys on the earth’s  surface, a cave can retain traces of a place’s ancient geology, meteorology, paleontology and even hydrology for a long time, said Li Po, chief engineer of the Guizhou Academy of Sciences’ Mountain Resource Research Institute.

Shuanghe Cave is a karst formation that was discovered in the late 1980s. Nineteen major surveys have been carried out by Chinese and foreign researchers. This year’s survey is currently underway.

The cave, located in Suiyang county, is the sixth-longest in the world, researchers said. “The length of a cave system equals the total length of all its main caves, branch tunnels, cenotes and underground rivers,” said Qian Zhi, secretary-general of Guizhou Cave Association.

A team of Chinese and French speleologists announced at a news conference March 24 that the surveyed passageways in Shuanghe Cave had reached 238.48 kilometers, making it the longest in Asia. Previously, the longest known Asian cave was the Clearwater Cave in Malaysia, with a length of 222 km.

The known longest cave system in the world is Mammoth Cave in central Kentucky, United States, with 663 km of surveyed passageways.   (China Daily)