Significant landscape of Rakovica in Karlovac county hides great network of 4 underground caves, which are representing valuable archaeological and paleontological sites. They are called Barać Caves and beside fossil bones and remains of the animals from the ice age, there can be find a lot of old tools and weapons. Although animals used those caves for hundreds of thousands of years, thanks to research, it is known that people used them mostly in the late 15th century, when the first Ottoman started in this area. That was the time when locals hid in the caves and used it as a kind of fortress. Those interesting facts were presented by Filip Špehar, expert guide of Barać Caves, in the latest Excover interview.

Endemic insects, bats and remains

- Lower Barać cave may be the largest, more precisely the longest of all Barać Caves, but it is closed for several reasons. It is simply too tight in parts, too narrow to move with a larger group of people, but at the same time, through research, two species of endemic insects were found in it, so to protect their natural habitat it was decided that the lower Barać Cave would remain closed to visitors. It is also a natural habitat for bats, so during the year, at certain months, we can even see the bats – says Špehar, adding that fragments of pottery, wooden and metal remains, as well as numerous fossil bones could be found there.

Ice age animals and speleothems

- The most interesting fact about the cave bear, given that it weighed about 700 kilograms, is that it was an herbivore. It would feed on berries and edible roots, so it had a modern vegan diet, for its Pleistocene period. The cave bear disappeared more than 10 to 15 thousand years ago because it is an animal from the so-called ice age, but it wasn't the only one to be found. Sometimes it sounds ridiculous as I list the remains of the animals which was found here, because there are finds of former hyena, leopard, woolly rhino, polar fox, cave lion and many more. Mostly all those animals disappeared 10.000 years ago – revealed the guide, noting that there are also many cave decorations or speleothems. Speleothems are mineral deposits, or simply a type of stone that is formed exclusively in the underground. There are several types, three most basic and most common types are stalactites, which grow from the ceiling downwards, stalagmites that grow from the floor upwards, and by merging these two types stalagnates or simply columns are formed.

“Barać Caves are visited by tourists from all over the world, including the people of our beautiful Croatia, but still, there's many of them who have not visited our caves. So we invite everyone interested, on the way to Plitvice or while just passing through, feel free to turn off the main road and visit us”, invited Filip Špehar.