The Arthropoda of Australian Caves are reviewed and assigned to four ecological categories: trogloxenes, first and second level troglophiles, and troglobites. It is shown that Australia has few troglobitic species and this supports an earlier suggestion that extensive secondary extinction of cavernicoles occurred during the Pleistocene and Recent epochs as a result of climatic change. It is further suggested that flooding of Australian caves during the Pleistocene followed by dehydration through general changes in water table levels or through geomorphological change also played a part in this secondary extinction. However, the general climatic changes were probably also responsible for the development of the large number of second-level troglophiles through extinction of their surfacedwelling progenitors.INTRODUCTION For many years, there has been a prevailing impression that the cave-dwelling fauna of Australia was sparse and of little interest. This concept appears to follow the impression given by Lea (1910) in his paper describing four species of beetles from Tasmanian Caves. He enumerated the other known cave-dwelling forms as three species of cave crickets (Rhapidophoridae), the glow worm fly, and two species of spider. He appears to have been unaware of the work already published by Higgins and Petterd (1883), Urquhart (1889) and Rainbow (1904Rainbow ( , 1905Rainbow ( , 1907. This view was reinforced by Wolf (1934-38) who, in reviewing the cavernicoles of the world, ascribed only nine species to Australia. Three of these were bats, although a much larger number were in fact recorded. Five were Mycetophilidae described by Skuse (1888) from rock shelters in the Blue Mountains and these cannot be considered as cavernicoles, but rather are shade-loving species. The remaining species was the springtail described by Rainbow (1907) and all other papers referred to above were ignored.Recent studies have revealed that we have a rich cave fauna, with many species of considerable interest. It seems timely that our present knowledge should be collated and reviewed to provide an overall view of this segment of our fauna. The taxonomic study of our cavernicoles will clearly continue for many years and further review will be necessary from time to time, but it is hoped that the stocktaking of the present paper will provide a useful starting point for further work.

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Myotyphlus jansoni (Matthews), previously considered an obligate ectoparasite of Rattus spp., is reported from bat guano in caves at Warrnambool, Victoria and Jenolan, New South Wales. This finding suggests that the genus Myotyphlus (Fauvel), assigned by Seevers to the tribe Amblyopinini, may need to be replaced in the Quediini.

Trenutno vsebuje seznam svetovne dediščine okoli 50 kraških krajev, toda precej jih je bilo vpisanih v seznamu zaradi drugih, »nekraških« posebnosti. Kraški sistemi imajo zelo širok razpon vrednosti sami po sebi, vključno njihovo izrazito biološko raznovrstnost in kulturni pomen, ki lahko obsega cela tisočletja. Danes želita tako Odbor za svetovno dediščino kot UNESCO, da bi določili tako strategijo za imenovanje novih krajev kot tudi osnove za določanje prednosti možnih krajev za vpis. Prispevek daje pregled preko trenutnih smeri in novih vzorcev, ki se pojavljajo pri izboru, ocenjevanju in imenovanju svetovne dediščine, ter povzema pomen trenutne kraške svetovne dediščine v Evropi. Ključne besede: UNESCO, kraška svetovna dediščina, način izbora svetovne dediščine, Evropa.