Kitum Cave

Kitum Cave is a non-solutional cave developed in pyroclastic (volcanic) rocks (not, as some have presumed, a lava tube) in Mount Elgon National Park in Kenya. The cave extends about 200 m into the side of the mountain. The walls contain a large amount of salt, and animals such as elephants have gone deep into the cave for centuries in search of salt. The walls are scratched and furrowed from the removal of salt. There is a lot of bat mucus deeper in the cave from fruit eating and carnivorous bats. There is also a deep crevasse in which younger elephants many times fall into and die. There is a theory that this cave was created by elephants digging for salt.

In the 1980s two different visitors to the cave contracted Marburg virus. In 1980, a French man (real name unknown; called Charles Monet by author Richard Preston) died from the virus, and in 1987 a Danish 15-year-old [http://www.cdc.gov/ncidod/dvrd/spb/mnpages/dispages/marburg/marburgtable.htm] (real name unknown; called Peter Cardinal by author Richard Preston) boy got sick and died after visiting the cave.

Several fictional and non-fictional literary works, including Richard Preston's "The Hot Zone", hypothesize that the natural carrier of the Marburg and Ebola viruses is found in this cave.

ee also

*Egyptian fruit bat

External links

* [http://www.kws.org/mt-elgon.html Mount Elgon National Park official site]
* [http://www.bbc.co.uk/nature/animals/features/314feature1.shtml The salt-mining elephants of Kenya]
* [http://faculty.jsd.claremont.edu/dmcfarlane/MtElgon/index.htm Mt. Elgon Caves including a Visitors' Guide]