“Um,” I whispered, staring up.
Then, like something out of a nightmare, the entire ceiling rushed toward us—and toward the only escape—in a swarm of screeching bats.
Jack grabbed hold of me with a sharp intake of breath; Amy let out a startled scream. Or maybe it was Connor. I couldn’t tell. Not that I could blame them . . .
“Bats,” I breathed, shaking off the residual heebie-jeebies.
Amy still had her hands over her head, ducking down low, and Connor looked three shades of white. Vince just chuckled. “Southern forest bat,” he said.
I held the light up again and there were still a few bats clinging to the ceiling that seemed content to stay, and I was happy to leave them.
This chamber definitely sloped downward and the crevice-like opening at the far end seemed to go down deeper still. The temperature dropped the further in we went and we scanned the craggy floor for snakes and thankfully found none. It was probably too cold for them. Though there were a few bugs and scurrying whispers, the cave floor was mostly critter-free. The critters hanging from the ceiling were fine . . . as long as they stayed on the ceiling.
The entrance into the third chamber was narrow and long, downward-sloping and cold, and a little slippery. But soon enough the passage opened up into a very dark and dank room. We scanned the floor area first for any potential danger. There were sharp rock formations, some of the walls were jagged, some were smooth, but it was thankfully minus snakes.
Then I scanned up to the ceiling.
I’d seen photos, but what I saw took my breath away.
An entire kaleidoscope of butterflies hung from the ceiling. A pink kaleidoscope.
There in the dark of a remote cave, halfway up a cliff face, was an entire colony of butterflies I’d never seen before.
Pink.
In the dark. In winter.
It was mind-boggling.
I put my hand to my mouth and blinked back tears. I glanced to Jack to find him staring upward with a huge grin, and when he felt my eyes on him, he turned to me. “Lawson . . .”
I nodded, not trusting my voice to speak.
“So, Doc,” Connor said. “Whaddya think? Is it a new species?”
I swallowed hard and tried to settle my nerves, my excitement. “I’ll need to examine and study . . .” I trailed off. He didn’t know, nor care, about the process. “But, yes. I do believe we might be looking at a new species.”
The three of them all grinned, excited and probably relieved. There had been a good chance that we’d have come all this way for nothing.
But Jack’s smile was something else. There was so much love, pride, and happiness there. He put his hand to my shoulder and pulled me in for a hug. He was all warmth and sweat, and being in his arms was my one true happy place. But this wasn’t really the time for that.
“Uh, Jack,” I mumbled. “You’re squashing the light.”
“Oh, sorry.” He pushed me back to arms-length. “Okay, so let’s get started. We need a grid set up, torch in every corner. Do not step on any casings or . . . actually, just stick to the walls as close as you can. Don’t walk underneath them, no direct light on them, no loud noises—”
“Uh, Jack. Thanks, but I can handle this,” I said. Well, I would have had it, but now it was too late. I turned to the other three. “Okay, well, what Jack said is fine.”
And so the real work began.
I took a myriad of readings, images, footage, and some fallen, expired casings and already-dead specimens from the cave floor.
Vince and Connor eventually left us to it, choosing to spend their time in the first chamber, which was probably for the best. Where we were was an enclosed space and I’d eliminated most of the floor space, so room was limited. But Amy stayed, thrilled at every turn. Most would find the work boring and tedious, but she loved the data collation. She monitored humidity, temperatures, and she was fastidious in her work. Everything was neat and precise, and I was duly impressed.
“What kind of lichen is that?” she asked.
The ceiling had a rivulet of water, filtered by a few hundred thousand tonnes of rock that fed a patch of moss-like lichen that clung to the ceiling like a carpet.
“It looks like a pink or purple lichen,” Jack said frowning. “We’re going to need a sample of that.”
I turned to him. “What do you mean a pink or purple lichen? Usually you speak in botanical names.”
He smirked and shrugged. “I’m not familiar with it.”
“You’re not . . .” I blinked, trying to piece his words together. “You’re never not familiar with a plant type.”
He pointed upward. “That resembles something like the Cryptohecia rubrocinta or the Arthoniaceae, which is a lichenised type of fungus.” Then he looked at me. “But neither of those should be here. Not in a cave, not at these temperatures, and not in Australia. I mean, we have some lichens that are close, but not like that.”
I blinked again and felt a little light-headed, if I was being honest. “A new species?”
“I can’t say. Not until we’ve taken samples for analysis.” He looked back up at the ceiling. “Could it explain the colour of the butterflies?”
“You think there’s a dietary pigmentation transference?”
Jack shrugged. “Honestly, I have no clue.”
I thought about that for a moment. “It would make sense. Similar to a flamingo, per se. I don’t like the chances of a coincidence. Pink lichen produces pink butterflies.” It was all so much to think about. Two new species found together?
Then Amy, who had been quiet all through this, said, “What are the odds of the lichen changing colour because of its diet?” She looked at each of us in turn. “Flamingos are pink because of the carotenoids in shrimp, right? Like you said. But in the plant world, it’s like the hydrangea. Too much aluminium in the soil, you have blue flowers. If you want to turn them pink, add lime.” She then looked up to the ceiling of the cave. “Not much of a stretch to presume that water trickle runs through limestone. Perhaps this lichen is similar to the hydrangea?”
I grinned at her. “Deductive reasoning. I like it.”
“I like it too,” Jack said. “We’ll know more when we can get it analysed.”
“And to find butterflies in winter is not common?” Amy asked as she took more readings. “I know Connor said it was odd.”
“Caterpillars usually spend colder months as eggs or larvae, even pupa,” I explained. “They have an internal thermometer, of sorts, called diapause. It’s found all through nature, including mammals. It tells them when to hibernate or migrate in winter and when to mate for spring. Butterflies will usually migrate. Overwintering will see a decline in egg production . . .” I stopped myself from going on and on about it. “To answer your question, finding butterflies in the imago phase, which is active sexual maturity in this case, at these temperatures and in complete darkness, is rare. Possibly unique.” I added another dead specimen to my collection. “Normally, butterflies prefer temperatures above ten or twelve degrees to fly and function. What temperature do we have now?”
Amy read off her screen. “It’s five-point-three degrees.”
“And being wet and cold usually kills butterflies,” Jack added. “The lichen provides a food source and a water source but acts as a sponge for them. So they can drink without getting wet.”