Sixty years ago today, Kentucky's Mammoth Cave opened as part of the United States National Park Service.With more than 350 miles explored and mapped, Mammoth Cave is the longest known cave system in the world.
The Land down under
Sixty years ago today, Kentucky's Mammoth Cave opened as part of the United States National Park Service.With more than 350 miles explored and mapped, Mammoth Cave is the longest known cave system in the world.
Like the grotto shown in Lawrence Ladd's watercolor, Mammoth Cave contains a river. The underground Echo River and the Mammoth Cave ecosystem support 200 species of animal life. About forty of those have adapted to living exclusively in the cave's darkness, such as fish and crayfish without eyes!
Pictured: Lawrence W. Ladd, active 1865–95, The Blue Grotto, about 1880, watercolor on paper, 17 11/16 x 28 in., Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Bates and Isabel Lowry.