ELLIOTT ET AL.: THE CAVE FAUNA OF CALIFORNIA 
21 
Figure 11. Transplant Mine, Tuolumne Co., Andy Grubbs at transplant site “T2”, January 1978. William R. Elliott. 
umented about 650 species in caves and springs in the State, with about 75 being troglobites. Elliott 
et al. (1985, 2003) reported on California’s high cave biodiversity at biospeleology meetings, but 
the forerunner of the current contribution remained unpublished, although it was available to inter¬ 
ested cave biologists. In the ensuing decades, Elliott maintained a California cave fauna list and 
Reddell made many taxonomic determinations of additional specimens from California caves 
(Briggs 1990; Elliott 2003). The arachnologist Willis Gertsch of the American Museum of Natural 
History identified California as a hotspot with at least 20 troglobitic spiders known at the time of 
publication (Gertsch 1992). In 1998, the cave biologist and coleopterist Stewart Peck identified the 
Sierra Nevada foothills as a troglobitic hotspot in North America, and listed 60 troglobitic species 
