Next up for #InsertAnInvert2024 is stygofauna: aquatic animals who live underground. This is a hard-carved and hand-printed linocut print of a little semi-transparent, white amphipod crustacean in the Neoniphargidae group from the Pilbara. This is a large, dry, sparsely populated region in northern part of Western Australia which is a global biodiversity hotspot for subterranean fauna 1/2
including aquatic animals that live in groundwater called stygofauna like this. Stygofauna can live in subterranean caves but most commonly live in alluvial, karstic or fractured rock aquifers within pore space and fractures in the rock. In the absence of light, stygofauna lack eyes and pigmentation. Stygofauna have evolved and survived over millions of years in the ecologically important Pilbara groundwater environment.
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