When temperatures dropped sharply 65 million years ago, many animals migrated to the equatorial zone of the planet. But the proteus made it into the depths and, since then, have evolved into a troglobe, that is, a species acclimated to living in caves. Throughout thousands and thousands of years they have been adapting to that existence in the dark; today they are blind and unpigmented creatures that, moreover, can live for several decades.
The unusual history of this small fish-like urodelo that reaches 35 cm in length and inhabits only the caves of central Europe – Slovenia, Italy, Croatia and southern Bosnia – has been the subject of much interesting research. Thus, the German zoologist Peter Schlegel has discovered that it is equipped with a kind of internal compass that allows it to orient itself through the Earth's magnetic field.
