Trapped Forever
“It’s very likely that the bacteria have been there a lot longer than five million years, but that the insects and lizards became trapped there around that time,” said J. Colin Murrell, a microbiologist from the University of East Anglia. “They could have simply fallen in and become trapped when the limestone cast dropped, sealing the cave until it was discovered again.” Could this discovery teach us more about how other creatures evolved over millions of years?