INFRASTRUCTURE AND EQUIPMENT

Workplace

Both the laboratory and the offices of HISR are located in Herakleion, Crete (Megalou Alexandrou 179) and operate on a daily basis.

 

Equipment

HISR’s means include:

  • Canyon, cave and pothole exploration equipment (individual and group SRT equipment, GPS, laser distance measurer, cartography equipment)
  • Equipment for measuring abiotic parameters (electronic recording instruments/ data loggers for temperature and atmospheric humidity, and temperature and water conductivity)
  • Sampling equipment (nets, pliers, mist nets, ultrasound detector)
  • Laboratory equipment (stereoscopes, PCs, expendables)
  • Photography and audio-video equipment for caves and potholes
  • Unmanned aerial vehicle (drone)

Library – Databases

HISR maintains an archive of circa 3.000 papers and 120 books. The papers that have been archived and indexed so far, concern:

  • Description of the caves of Greece (550 papers)
  • Cave fauna of Greece (700 papers)

HISR also owns 3 databases which are frequently updated:

  • “Inventory of the caves and potholes of Crete” (5,200 registered caves)
  • “Explored caves in Greece” (Indexed data from 550 papers)
  • “Cave fauna of Greece” (Indexed data from 700 papers)

In addition, HISR maintains organized audiovisual material from caves, other karst forms and various environmental themes of more than 100.000 photographs and 150 hours of video.

Scientific collections

HISR’s collections include:

  • The world’s largest collection of cave-dweller animals of Greece, which includes invertebrate specimens from hundreds of caves.
  • Large collection of bone fractures of micromammals found in barn owls’ pellets from Greek caves (more than 50,000 specimens).
  • A relatively small collection of aquatic invertabrates from karstic springs.