Lava Tube Cave Arthropods

The DLNR 2015 SWAP factsheet for cave arthropods is here: https://dlnr.hawaii.gov/wildlife/hswap/fact-sheets/. A snip from the factsheet is below.

Hawaiʻi also has beetles and crickets and other fauna that are obligate cave dwellers (troglobionts or troglobites). Information about these species is sparse. The 1973 Pacific Insects journal paper The  Cavernicolous  Fauna  of  Hawaiian  Lava  Tubes  by  F.  Howarth at the Bishop Museum is the introduction to series of reports on fauna of lava tubes in Hawaiʻi: http://hbs.bishopmuseum.org/pi/pdf/15(1)-139.pdf. Numerous other reports were issued on lava tube fauna in Pacific Insects journal. They are available online and can be searched with keywords: http://hbs.bishopmuseum.org/pi/.

A more recent 2018 study of lava tube caves reported in an abstract of conference proceedings by M. Slay et al. in the southwest region of Hawaiʻi continues to find new species. The abstract can be accessed here: https://aca.pensoft.net/articles.php?id=29874. That abstract states that to date 74 troblobionts have been documented in Hawaiʻi, 44 on the Big Island (assumed this means in total, not just from this study). A nice set of photos taken during the surveys reported in the abstract is here: https://annettesummersengel.com/Hawaii-lava-tubes.