One of a Kind Cave Critters?

Where do cave critters come from? Since any land animals that survived the Flood must have been aboard the Ark, how did animals uniquely suited to the subterranean world of caves come into existence?

A cave salamander (Eurycea lucifuga) found in Arkansas.

Many decades ago, creationist pioneer Frank Marsh suggested that cave species belong to the same created kind as regular surface-dwellers. A recent report by Matthew Niemiller and others confirms Marsh’s idea.* They studied the genes of three types of Tennessee cave salamanders and found that they are very closely related to the surface-dwelling spring salamander.

In fact, it appears there has been “gene flow” between the surface and cave species. In other words, the surface and cave dwellers have been interbreeding, one indicator that they belong to the same created kind, just as Marsh predicted.

^*Molecular Ecology, May 2008, pp. 2258–2275.