Animals of the Moravian Karst: Bats, Lynx, Peregrine Falcons and 33 Species Found Nowhere Else

More than 100 animal species previously unknown to science have been described from the Moravian Karst, 33 of them cave dwellers. The area is home to 24 of the 27 bat species found in the Czech Republic, and in the winter of 2016/2017 the lesser horseshoe bat alone numbered 4,589 individuals. A total of 2,220 species of butterflies and moths have been recorded here, which is two-thirds of the entire country’s fauna. In 2016 the lynx returned to the karst, and after almost sixty years the peregrine falcon nested here again. You won’t see most of this on a day out, but a few things can be spotted, and it’s worth knowing what to look for.

QUICK LINKS 🦇 Bats · 🕷 Life in the caves · 🦋 Butterflies and moths · 🦌 Larger animals · 🦅 Birds · 🐸 By the water · ❓ FAQ

Why is there such richness here?

Compared with other karst areas in the Czech Republic, the Moravian Karst is predominantly wooded and submontane in character, with a strong Carpathian influence. In a small area you will find warm steppe, cool gorge bottoms, limestone rock faces, stream meadows and underground habitats side by side. Each of these environments has its own residents.

One figure says more about the area’s importance than any description: more than 100 new species, previously unknown to science, have been described from here, across a range of zoological groups.

Bats: 24 out of 27 species

This is the karst’s greatest wildlife treasure. Of the 27 bat species recorded across the whole of the Czech Republic, 24 have been found here. Eighteen species hibernate in the caves.

The most numerous are the greater mouse-eared bat, the lesser horseshoe bat and the barbastelle bat. In winter the first two can make up as much as 90% of all individuals. During monitoring in the winter of 2016/2017, 4,589 lesser horseshoe bats were counted in the caves of the Moravian Karst, and their numbers are rising, partly thanks to changes in farming practice and in the management of open land.

Two things people don’t usually know about them

There are no summer bat colonies in the caves of the Moravian Karst. The caves here are used exclusively for winter hibernation. Females and their young spend the summer in human-built structures, often well away from the karst. Large colonies are known from the church in Blansko and the church in Křtiny. That is why the buildings themselves are being proposed as Sites of Community Importance within the Natura 2000 network.

Bats fly in to hibernate here from a wide area and from every direction. The Moravian Karst is not just home to local animals; it is a winter refuge for the whole region.

This explains why some caves are closed in winter and why activity in them is restricted during the cold months. Waking from hibernation costs a bat so much energy that it can cost the animal its life.

Life in the caves: darkness, 8 °C and no seasons

The temperature in the caves is a steady 8 °C or so, humidity is close to 100%, there is no light and little food. Green plants cannot grow there. Anything that wants to live there permanently has to adapt, and you can see it: pigmentation disappears, eyes shrink or vanish altogether, limbs grow longer, and the sense of smell and taste improves.

According to how well they have adapted, cave animals fall into three groups:

• trogloxenes — end up there by accident and die after a while
• troglophiles — live both inside and outside, often near the entrances
• troglobionts — live only in caves, are perfectly adapted and breed all year round, because there are no seasons underground

33 cave-dwelling species new to science have been described from the Moravian Karst. Most of them are springtails and mites.

The best story, though, belongs to a tiny oligochaete worm, Bythonomus absoloni. It is an endemic, found nowhere else in the world, and it was described from Jalové koryto, that is, from the very bottom of the Macocha Abyss.

In the entrance sections of the caves you are more likely to come across the spiders Meta menardi and Meta bourneti, which live just as happily in old cellars. And a few moths and butterflies that have no real business there penetrate surprisingly deep into the caves: the herald moth and the cave looper.

Butterflies and moths: two-thirds of the Czech fauna

Intensive surveys in recent years have recorded 2,220 species of butterflies and moths in the Moravian Karst, which is 66% of the fauna of the entire Czech Republic. This has made the karst one of the best-studied areas in the country.

Most of them are found in the south. On Hády, in an area of less than one square kilometre, more than 1,700 were found, and about twenty of them reach the northernmost point of their range here, living no further north.

What the average visitor might come across:

• Clouded Apollo — numerous populations still live in the clearings above the Říčka valley; a critically endangered species
• Swallowtail and Scarce Swallowtail — neither is threatened in the karst
• Purple emperor and Lesser purple emperor, Poplar admiral and Southern white admiral
• Woodland ringlet and Great banded grayling on the steppes
• Giant peacock moth, our largest moth, was recorded on Hády

The sadder half of the story: Large blue is on the verge of extinction, Scarce fritillary disappeared from the area as early as the beginning of the 20th century and Rock grayling in the 1980s, although it reappeared at the start of the millennium in the Údolí Říčky nature reserve.

Larger animals

The common forest residents are roe deer, wild boar, badger, stone marten and red squirrel. Among the rarer small mammals, the area is home to the edible dormouse and the bicoloured white-toothed shrew.

The mouflon was introduced here in 1929 on the estate of what is now the Křtiny Training Forest Enterprise. Its overpopulation caused problems on the steppe sites: trampling, erosion and browsing. Interestingly, unlike in other areas, mouflon in the karst hardly ever strip bark from trees.

Red deer appear rarely in the southern part of the karst.

The lynx

In 1959–60 a Eurasian lynx stayed in Pustý žleb. After that it was only occasional, and in one year a nursing female was even poached. The lynx was last seen in the Moravian Karst in the autumn of 2016.

The chance of seeing one on a day out is practically zero. But it is good to know that they pass through.

Birds: the falcon returns after 59 years

The karst’s most powerful ornithological story.

The peregrine falcon nested on the local rock faces until 1957, then disappeared. Between 1993 and 2001, 26 young birds were released here as part of a reintroduction programme, and in 1992 two male saker falcons as well. The result took another fifteen years to arrive: in 2016 a peregrine falcon successfully nested in the northern part of the Moravian Karst and raised three chicks.

This is the direct reason why climbing is permitted on some crags only from 1 July to the end of the year. You can read more in our article on climbing in the karst.

Other residents of the cliffs include the Eurasian eagle-owl, the common raven and the common swift. In winter the wallcreeper, a small bird that climbs sheer rock faces, occasionally strays in.

In the old beech woods the stock dove and the red-breasted flycatcher nest, in recent decades the black stork has settled in the forests and, most recently, the Tengmalm’s owl. Among the birds of prey, the northern goshawk and the Eurasian sparrowhawk hunt regularly, with the European honey buzzard and the Eurasian hobby in smaller numbers.

By the water

Along the streams the typical bird is the white-throated dipper: black and white, about the size of a blackbird, it dives and walks along the bottom. Occasionally a kingfisher appears too.

The streams are home to the endangered fish bullhead and common minnow. The noble crayfish, a critically endangered species, occurs sparsely.

Among the amphibians, the most common are the common toad and the common frog, with the fire salamander in many places (after rain you can meet it quite easily in the gorges), as well as the smooth newt and the alpine newt, the European tree frog and the agile frog.

Among the reptiles are the sand lizard, the slow worm and the grass snake. The European green lizard lives in the southern part, along with the introduced common wall lizard. The adder appears only very rarely on the fringes of the protected landscape area, so you won’t meet one on a normal route through the karst.

And one more that may surprise you: the praying mantis is now common on the open, treeless sites of the karst.

Frequently asked questions

Will I see bats on a cave tour? Only exceptionally on the visitor routes. Bats seek out the quiet parts of the caves where visitors don’t go, and nobody is allowed to disturb hibernating individuals. If you do spot one, just watch it, and don’t photograph it with a flash.

Are there any dangerous animals in the Moravian Karst? No. The adder occurs here only very rarely on the edges of the area. Wild boar are common, but they avoid people. Just don’t come between a sow and her piglets.

When am I most likely to see something? Early in the morning and before dusk, outside the main season and away from the main routes. Fire salamanders can be found anywhere in damp gorges after heavy rain, and butterflies and moths on the steppe slopes in the southern part on a sunny day in June.

Why are some caves closed in winter? Because of the hibernating bats. The caves have gates with flight openings, and in winter both activity and anything that would alter the microclimate are restricted.

What does it mean that a species was described from the Moravian Karst? It means that the first specimen from which science originally described and named the species came from here. For the 33 cave species, this means the Moravian Karst is their type locality. That is how the name Poecilophysis wankeli, referring to Jindřich Wankel, the father of Moravian archaeology, found its way into the world’s zoological literature.

Source: AOPK ČR (Nature Conservation Agency of the Czech Republic), Analyses of the Protected Features of the Moravian Karst Protected Landscape Area (August 2017), chapters 2.6 and 3.8. Numbers and latest sightings are accurate as of 2017.

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