Protura (Arthropoda: Hexapoda) in Slovenian caves

Protura is a small class of Hexapoda, generally poorly known, and rather scarce data on its occurrence in caves are scattered throughout literature fauna some papers Protura. Although the cave-dwelling relatively well studied Slovenia, published records rare. In this paper, abundance Slovenian considered. Various statistical analyses were performed to compare with those without 60 intensively monitored cavities detect any differences selected environmental conditions. No significant difference was obtained. Samples collected from 15 yielded 286 specimens identified genus or species level. Ten identified: Acerentulus confinis (Berlese, 1908), A. rafalskii Szeptycki, 1979*, Acerentomon affine Bagnall, 1912*, balcanicum Ionesco, 1933*, italicum Nosek, 1969, maius Berlese, 1908*, meridionale 1960, Acerella muscorum (Ionesco, 1930)*, Eosentomon armatum Stach, 1926*, E. transitorium 1908*. The seven marked an asterisk new for Slovenia. Two belonging unidentified Ionescuellum Tuxen, 1960 also found. As expected, most abundant at cave entrance close surface, none found exclusively cavities. This suggests that proturans introduced passively into via organic matter surface soils.