Cave Biology Data Portal: subterranean biodiversity of North America and around the globe
A reference for the subterranean fauna of North America and around the world. Every species has an account covering classification, distribution, conservation status, museum material, and published sequences, with sources cited and gaps stated plainly.
Alongside the accounts: what has been recorded in each state and karst region, funding and employment in cave and karst science, meetings and public comment periods, and routes for anyone who wants to correct it, add to it, or contribute a record.
Where to start
Browse species
Filter 1,445 accounts by state, karst region, habitat, conservation status or taxonomic group. Every filtered view has its own link, so a result can be shared or cited.
Browse by classification
The full tree from kingdom to genus, 540 groups in all, with the number of species recorded beneath each.
Browse by place
What has been recorded in each state and karst region, with the imperiled species and the ones found nowhere else. Often the easiest way in.
About the data
Where the records come from, how conservation ranks are sourced, and what is published about localities.
Recently updated
Accounts are revised as records are added and taxonomy changes. Browse all 1,445.
Lately
Coming up
- 4 Sep 2026 Cave Fest 2026
- 7 Sep 2026 27th International Conference on Subterranean Biology
- 13 Sep 2026 International Day of Caves and Karst
Funding and employment
Opportunities in this field are scattered across society announcements, university listings, and mailing lists. We gather them, and remove each one on its closing date so nothing here has already passed.
What an account contains
Classification and names
Accepted name and authority, the full classification, synonyms, and links to Catalogue of Life, GBIF, ITIS, iNaturalist, NCBI, WoRMS and Wikidata.
Distribution
States, counties and karst regions, generalized from the underlying records. Type locality where it is known.
Conservation
IUCN Red List category and NatureServe global and subnational ranks, shown on their published scales, with federal listing status and documented threats.
Specimens
Type material with catalog numbers and the institutions holding it, a summary of holdings by collection, and the full record list as a download.
Sequences
Published sequences by marker with molecule type, length range and a linked exemplar accession, plus the full list as a download.
Narrative
Where an account has been written up: description, habitat, ecology, genetics, etymology and conservation, attributed to its author and citable by version.
What is not here
The portal is a work in progress and says so where it matters. 1,192 species have no published sequence data at all. 558 have no cataloged museum material we can find. Most accounts are structured records rather than written narratives, and county-level distribution is still being compiled.
Coordinates are withheld as a matter of policy, not because they are missing. Absence of a species from the portal does not mean it is absent from a place: most caves have never been surveyed, and subterranean fauna is consistently under-recorded.
This is built by the people who work on these animals
A compilation has gaps, and the people most likely to know are the specialists, cavers, and agency staff who work on subterranean fauna. Corrections, photographs, observations, newly described species, and references all have their own routes, and each takes a few minutes.
Ways to contribute
What is missing, and how to help fill it.
Report a correction
A wrong authority, outdated taxonomy, a record that should not be there. The most useful email we get.
Submit an observation
A record from a trip you made, published or not. A confirmation that a population is still there is as useful as a new locality.
Citing the portal
Individual accounts carry their own citation and version. Text and data are published under CC BY 4.0; images are not.
Supported by the U.S. National Science Foundation under Award No. 2047939, with hosting and design provided by Niemiller Nature LLC. See acknowledgments for data sources and credits.