Python Pit Update

Location: Bry. Tabinay – App. 3 km. Southeast of Puerto Galera, Oriental Mindoro.

Cave Entrance:

Crossing resurgent springs that feed a stream along the foot of a mountain, the entrance is accessed through a 30-45 degree sloppy trail composed of loose marble rocks and clay-loam soil that gets muddy and sticky during rainy season. Python Cave is technically a vertical “Pit” with the entrance at app. 445.5ft./135m. above sea level. It’s mouth gape upwards to the sky, oriented 330 degrees North to 150 degrees South with an app. Length of 50ft./15m., and 270 degrees East to 90 degrees West with an app. Width of 26ft./8m. Rock composition is that of Marble.

Vertical Features:

App. Vertical depth from entrance to bottom is 175ft./53m. at a straight 90 degree angle. After a few meters from the top, the sidewalls disappear and form undercuts or overhangs that expands the cave width to app. 40ft/12m. Another wall reappears at a depth of 100ft./30m.which goes down to about 25ft./7.5m.and disappears again for another final vertical drop of 50ft./15m. to the bottom. The massive undercut along the eastern side of the drop features a marble face aquamarine and turquoise in color due to algae accumulation. Another cave mouth is found along an undercut at the southwest side located app. 60ft./18m. from the top.

Bottom Features:

Sunlight only penetrates about one-fourth (1/4) of the bottom sections of the Pit. It shines directly on rocky hill that slopes down gradually from West to East. At the western side are “boulder fall outs” which lead to a high dark chamber that serves as the main bat roosting section. There are three other chambers by the eastern side that serves as bat roosting places. The bottom pit is app.72ft./22m. in width. Along the southeast sections of the bottom are dark undercuts with high ceilings. Flooring here is composed of fine silt mixed with guano droppings. A point of interest is a small coconut tree growing within a dark chamber. App. 30ft./10m. to the North, a partially elevated sandy beach slopes down to a stream that runs from East to West for 82.5ft./25m. in length. The clear cold water come out of a resurging sump from the East and is siphoned thru small sumps on the West at an interior altitude of 264ft./80m.above sea level. It is highly probable that this cave stream system feed the outer springs used by the local community as their water resource found outside at 231ft./70m. above sea level.

A single white “flowstone” stalactite hangs over the ceiling just above the stream, in contrast to the red ochre “bacon” calcite formations that are abundant throughout the cavern ceilings implying the presence of iron minerals.

Unfortunately, a serious amount of garbage such as bottles, tin cans, plastics, and an unbelievable amount of hooks & nylon debris litter the rocky bottom that is directly exposed to sunlight.

Cave Life:

Bats are the dominant animals that colonize the inner dark chambers of “Python Cave”. At present, their population is at a rough estimate of about ten thousand. Local residents have claimed that there were much more abundant in the past, probably running into millions as the colony flew out of the cave mouth like a long dark cloud. The population was depleted allegedly by the “Mangyans” (indigenous people of Mindoro) through the decades as they set up multiple nylon lines with hundreds of hooks to ensnare the bats and use them as a food source. Although relatively few in numbers, there are now numerous baby bats presently observed within the current population.

Also existing within the cave stream are a few Freshwater Pincher Shrimps and crabs. Locally known as “Ulang”, these freshwater shrimps are easily distinguished by their thin, elongated arms that extend into two small pinchers at both ends. Both are scavengers in nature and forage on algae. Guano droppings are most likely their main food source.

Four Cave Frogs were found along the ledges of the bottom chambers. They are app. 3 inches in length, greenish brown in color with black eyes. A cave spider was also observed. They are likely to live on small insects such as cave beetles, crickets, and cockroaches that in turn live off the Guano, all found at the bottom of “Python Pit”.

Not a single Python snake was seen during the exploration. A local said they are sometimes found inside the other entrance situated along the southeast side of the vertical wall, which of course, remains to be seen. Stories of a huge albino monitor lizard caught inside the pit, and a Python with a belly as wide as a moderate tree trunk, both already eaten, seem to be popular cave tales among the locals.

Conclusions and Recommendations:

The long vertical drop from the top entrance to the bottom of the Pit makes this a “Technical” Cave requiring advanced ropemanship skills for a caver to have safe access. It is NOT recommended that it should be open to “tourism programs” unless participants have previous Advanced “Single Rope Technique” (SRT) training and experience with proper equipment.

The sump feeding the stream at the bottom of the pit is prone to flooding resulting in high water action during rainy season. Some of the garbage and debris found at the bottom could be probable pollutants and block the sump passage to the spring resurgence. A clean-up program for the bottom of the pit is highly recommended. Further mining of Guano and trapping of Bats should be discouraged among the local residents.

Resurgent Springs found along the river and at the foot of the mountain are regularly used by local residents for drinking, bathing, and washing. There are no conscientious practices by the locals on garbage disposal so plastics, paper, tin cans, etc. are found littered along the streams. It is highly recommended that an educational seminar and clean-up program with proper garbage disposals be instigated at the barangay level. Furthermore, a continuous adherence to the log ban around the area cannot be overly emphasized. Deforestation would surely and inevitably also be detrimental to the cave system underneath including the loss of a very precious resource of the community – clean water from the mountains!