Trogloxenes

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. Creatures that enter caves for shelter or feeding but do not complete their life cycle there, unlike cave-dwelling species that remain underground permanently
2. Animals which make occasional use of caves without depending on them, spending much of their time in the open air outside
3. Organisms that frequent cave environments for part of their activity while living elsewhere on the surface

Etymology: "Trogloxenes" is the plural of "trogloxene," a term for animals that enter caves regularly, often for shelter or food, but do not live their whole lives there. The singular is a compound of two Ancient Greek words: "trṓglē," meaning "hole" or "cave," and "xénos," meaning "foreign" or "stranger," which also gave English "xenophobia" and "xenon." The "xénos" element is the surprising part. In Greek it could describe a guest, a host, or a stranger, so the same root covers the visitor and the outsider. Here it marks the animal as a visitor in a space that belongs to cave-dwelling creatures, the troglobites that spend their whole lives underground. A bat roosting in a cave or a cricket sheltering from the daylight is a trogloxene in this sense, while a blind, pale fish that never leaves the water is not.