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Objective obstacles such as high water levels that prevent access to caves at certain times of the year or the need to use complex tools and skills such as cave diving make biological research in caves extremely complex and occasionally dangerous. Moreover, to study physiological and behavioral adaptations of cave animals, they must be kept under controlled laboratory conditions. For this reason, we have established an animal facility in our laboratory. The available literature on invertebrate setup, operation, and care was sparse and unsuitable for the species we were studying. Fortunately, many cave biologists provided us with advice and support during the initial phase. Here we present our experiences to provide some guidelines for other researchers undertaking similar efforts. Among other animal groups, we are culturing several morphotypes of the cave snail Physella sp. and two cave and one surface species pair of bivalves: Congeria spp. and Dreissena polymorpha. We discuss good and bad practices in mollusk care - housing, water treatment, different types of food, and small aquarium design. Special attention is given to problems we have encountered with our colonies and changes we have made to address these problems, both successful and unsuccessful. We also address the general protocols required for keeping multiple species in a single facility, including procedures for decontamination of equipment and tools, and quarantine.

Many aspects of cave animal biology cannot be understood through field observations alone. Access to some subterranean habitats is often technically challenging, rendering long-term monitoring of cave-dwelling species or investigating some aspects of their biology difficult. Also, contemporary research questions and methods require sampling individuals at certain life stages, and most cave adapted species have lengthy life spans or are not accessible in their natural habitats year-round. Therefore, we have established an animal facility in our laboratory where we keep cave-dwelling and related surface-dwelling crustacean species under controlled conditions. This allows us to study physiological and behavioral adaptations and the role of phenotypic plasticity in the evolution of these traits in cave dwellers. We are culturing freshwater, marine, and terrestrial isopods from three different families (Asellidae, Sphaeromatidae, and Trichoniscidae), among others. To date, we have established breeding colonies of several different cave and surface species pairs of aquatic asellids, and our most successful colonies have lived for two years and three generations. We have also established colonies of cave (freshwater) and surface (marine) sphaeromatids with varying degrees of success. Among terrestrial trichoniscids, colonies of cave species have persisted for more than two years, but without successful reproduction. Our repeated attempts to maintain surface species of Trichoniscus have been unsuccessful. Here we present our experiences to provide guidance for other researchers making similar attempts. We discuss general care practices such as decontamination of equipment and tools, quarantine, good and bad practices for small aquarium and terrarium design, housing, water treatment and conditioning, various food sources, and breeding approaches. We also review some of the problems we have encountered with our colonies and describe our attempts to solve them with varying degrees of success.

One of the most striking features of obligate subterranean species is their narrow distribution ranges. These prevail not only at specific, but often also at generic level. However, some subterranean genera have continental scale and disjunct distribu- tion, which challenges their monophyly and questions the scenarios of their origin and colonization. In our study, we investigated the subterranean collembolan genus Verhoeffiella, currently known from five remote karst regions of Europe. Four nu- clear and one mitochondrial genes were assembled to reveal the evolutionary his- tory of the genus. We tested the monophyly of the genus, explored its relationship with putative surface relatives, and its temporal patterns of molecular diversification. The phylogeny revealed a complex relationship of Verhoeffiella with surface species Heteromurus nitidus and partially disentangled the biogeographical question of its disjunct distribution. Further on, several lineages of Verhoeffiella were recognized in the Dinarides, showing highly underestimated diversity and, compared with the number of described species, a sevenfold increase in the number of MOTUs. The radiation is relatively recent, with the events triggering the diversification linked to the Messinian salinity crisis and Pleistocene climatic shifts. The combination of this extensive subterranean radiation and close evolutionary links with epigean relatives makes Verhoeffiella an exceptional case within the subterranean fauna of temperate areas, which significantly contributes to our understanding of subterranean coloniza- tion and diversification patterns.

Five new species are described, Plusiocampa (Didymocampa) cvijici Sendra & Antić, sp. nov., Plusiocampa (Plusiocampa) atom Sendra & Antić, sp. nov., Plusiocampa (Stygiocampa) barethae Sendra & Rađa, sp. nov., Plusiocampa (Stygiocampa) dulcici Sendra & Rađa, sp. nov. and Plusiocampa (Venetocampa) pirnati Sendra & Borko, sp. nov. This brings the number of cave-adapted species of campodeids known from the Dinarides, Eastern Alps, Balkan System and Rodope Massif to 28 (one species in the genus Campodea and 27 in Plusiocampa). Among Plusiocampa, four out of five subgenera are present (Pentachaetocampa is not present in the region studied): Didymocampa (one species), Plusiocampa s. str. (15 species), Stygiocampa (eight species) and Venetocampa (three species), whereby Stygiocampa and Venetocampa are endemic to the studied region. These results reveal the importance of the Dinarides karst region as a centre of diversification for campodeids and for cave animals in general. A monophyletic subgroup, consisting of Stygiocampa, Venetocampa and Plusiocampa s. str. and characterized by the absence of medial posterior thoracic macrosetae, presumably colonized the Dinaric plate during the middle of the Cenozoic and occurs in that area since then.

Starting from the observation that spatiality plays an important role in David Lynch’s Twin Peaks and Fire Walk with Me, this article relies on Michel Foucault’s concept of heterotopia in analyzing the presented material. Within its set of clearly delineated spaces, the introduction of certain uncanny elements into the narrative leads towards the creation of heterotopian nexuses, which consequently allow for heterotopian incursions – the complete superposition of the heterotopian order onto the ordinary spatially defined narrative level. This in turn questions the very nature of Foucault’s notion of space as a set of sites that are irreducible to one another.

Among numerous starting points for a potential analysis of the complex Victorian narrative tapestry that is Alan Moore and Eddie Campbell’s From Hell, one segment in particular stands apart. It is the representation of the notorious Jack the Ripper, here elevated as a key figure for both Victorian London and the violently approaching twentieth century. However, the complexly portrayed image of Dr William Gull as the serial killer cannot be contained or understood within the ‘simplifying’ frame of a criminal. What this analysis proposes is a reading of this prototypical serial killer through the prism of his interaction with the urban spaces surrounding him. Drawing on the spatial theoretical framework of authors such as Yi Fu Tuan, Henri Lefebvre, as well as the concept of the flâneur, presented and developed by Charles Baudelaire and Walter Benjamin, the paper constructs its analysis on the premise of the serial killer as a conceptually new, aggressive type of the flâneur, positioned within a supratemporal context. This direct challenge to the canonical understanding of the flâneur allows for a simultaneous coexistence of the Victorian gentleman scrutinous of the vibrant streets of London, and the obsessed killer whose actions foreshadow the looming twentieth century.

Phylogenetic assessments of functional traits are important for mechanistically understanding the interactions between organisms and environments, but such practices are strongly limited by the availability of phylogenetic frameworks. The tomocerin springtails are an ancient, widespread and ecologically important group of terrestrial arthropods, whereas their phylogeny and trait evolution remained unaddressed. In the present study, we conducted the first comprehensive phylogenetic reconstruction of Tomocerinae, based on a multi-loci molecular dataset covering all major lineages within the subfamily, using Bayesian inference (BI), maximum-likelihood (ML) and maximum-parsimony (MP) approaches. Divergence time was estimated and ancestral character state reconstruction (ACSR) was performed to trace the evolutionary history of five ecomorphological traits correlated with sensory and locomotory functions. Our results support the monophyly of Tomocerinae, and indicate that current classification of Tomocerinae only partially reflects evolutionary relationships, notably the commonest and speciose genus Tomocerus is polyphyletic. The subfamily probably originated in Early Cretaceous and diversified in two Cretaceous and one Eocene radiation events. As indicated by the evolutionary patterns of functional traits, multiple ecological divergences took place during the diversification of Tomocerinae. The study suggests a potential underestimation of ecological divergence and functional diversity in terrestrial arthropods, calls for an update of present trait databases, and demonstrates the value of macroevolutionary knowledge for improving the trait-based ecology. In addition, Tomocerus, Tomocerina and Tritomurus are redefined, a new genus Yoshiicerus gen. n. and new subgenera Coloratomurus subgen. n., Ciliatomurus subgen. n., Striatomurus subgen. n. and Ocreatomurus subgen. n. are described in the appendix.

Projektom Biospeleološka istraživanja i inventarizacija faune u speleološkim objektima Nacionalnog parka Sjeverni Velebit u suradnji Javne ustanove "Nacionalni park Sjeverni Velebit" i Hrvatskog biospeleološkog društva, biospeleološki je istraženo 5 speleoloških objekata: Jama pod Budinom kosicom, Jama u kuku, Sniježnica u Medvjeđoj dolini, Špilja u Štirovači i Terca. U svakom je objektu sakupljana fauna, mjereni su mikroklimatski parametri te su fotodokumentirani ulaz, unutrašnjost objekta i fauna. Detaljno su taksonomski obrađene skupine pauka (Araneae), jednakonožnih rakova (Isopoda), striga (Chilopoda), dvojenoga (Diplopoda), skokuna (Collembola) i kornjaša (Coleoptera). Rezultati ovog istraživanja značajno su doprinijeli poznavanju podzemne faune Parka te su naglasili važnost i potrebu sustavne inventarizacije podzemne faune speleoloških objekata., Via the project ‘Biospeleological investigations and inventory of the fauna in the speleological structures of the Northern Velebit National Park’ in collaboration with the Northern Velebit National Park public institution and the Croatian Biospeleological Society, five speleological structures have been biospeleologically investigated: The pit below Budina kosica, the pit in Kuk, Sniježnica in Medvjeđa valley, the cave in Štirovača and Terca. In each structure the fauna was collected, the microclimatic parameters were measured and the entrance, underground spaces and fauna were photographed. Groups of spiders (Araneae), crustaceans (Isopoda), centipedes (Chilopoda), millipedes (Diplopoda), springtails (Collembola) and beetles (Coleoptera) were taxonomically processed in detail. In total, 27 taxa were recorded of which 13 are troglobion, i.e. species completely adapted to life underground. Four species were noted in the park for the first time, and one of them is new to science. The range of the measured air temperatures started from 2.9 to 9.8°C and this shows a great diversity of the habitats of the speleological structures of Northern Velebit, which is evident also by the number of recorded species. These results have complemented significantly to the list of the underground fauna of the park, expanded the knowledge of the recorded species and have highlighted the importance of the systematic inventorying of the underground fauna of speleological structures of all dimensions, small and large. Likewise, it has shown that the underground fauna of the Northern Velebit National Park is extremely interesting and worthy of preservation.

The paper presents information on the spider collection (Araneae) housed in the Natural History Museum in Zagreb, Croatia. The collection was founded in 1931 and now includes the material assembled in 1884–1964; it consists of 2,461 lots and numbers 8,478 specimens belonging to 464 species, mainly collected by the Croatian arachnologist Narcis Damin. Most specimens are well-preserved in ethanol. This spider collection does not cover all Croatian regions with the majority of samples (67%) originating from coastal regions of east Adriatic. A taxonomic re-examination of the collection has revealed 31 species that are new to the Croatian spider fauna. Spider collecting has been resumed in Croatia recently., Rad donosi podatke o Zbirci pauka (Araneae) pohranjenoj u Hrvatskom prirodoslovnom muzeju u Zagrebu. Zbirka je osnovana 1931. godine i danas obuhvaća materijal prikupljan u razdoblju 1884.–1964.; sastoji se od 2.461 inventarne jedinice te broji 8.478 primjeraka 464 vrste, koje je uglavnom prikupio hrvatski arahnolog Narcis Damin. Većina primjeraka je dobro očuvana u etanolu. Zbirka pauka ne pokriva sve hrvatske regije; većina uzoraka (67%) potječe s istočne obale Jadrana. Taksonomska revizija zbirke utvrdila je 31 vrstu novu za hrvatsku faunu pauka. Odnedavno je prikupljanje pauka u Hrvatskoj ponovno započelo.

The Hon Chong‒Kâmpôt hills form a group of tiny karstic outcrops scattered in the alluvial plain across the southwestern border between Vietnam and Cambodia. This group hosts an exceptional concentration of endemic taxa that have been progressively discovered during the past two decades. Remarkable endemic genera of millipedes, mites, woodlice and beetles, as well as many endemic species of other arthropod groups are known from deep soil and from caves of this karst. Among them, several species remain known from only single caves or sites, despite intensive sampling. These hills are under critical threat from limestone exploitation. Most of them have already been, or are going to be, levelled during the coming years, the plan being to leave only 3 km2 of unquarried limestone in the Vietnamese part of the karst. We describe here the patterns of endemism and the patterns of threats to this karst group, and summarize the attempts that have been made so far to avoid what is turning out to be one of the worst mass extinctions of karst species documented to date.

In preparing this Festschrift, we had in mind a specific inflection of the concept of errancy, one that comes from the rich and layered work of the American scholar and philosopher William V. Spanos, who conceived it as a way of rendering the logos and telos of the American project subject to thorough rethinking and redefinition, both in history and at present. By calling attention to the complementarity of the work of the two scholars, Grgas and Spanos, who both hone their critical skills on the theme of the logic of the American project, we do not so much intend to claim a direct influence but rather wish to highlight the confluence, commingling, and inspiration that working in the humanities may engender. This commonality is featured in the work of Spanos and in the work of Grgas as a dedicated and passionate engagement with the practices and possibilities inscribed in the discipline, which also requires the scholar to move beyond the given and inhabit what Spanos calls a meta-level of thinking. Grgas’s work, located at the intersection of several disciplines within the humanities and social sciences (which is reflected in the principal themes of this Festschrift), reveals precisely such a commitment that has in the course of his long, fruitful and versatile career charted out a scholarly position always in the process of becoming, and never quite stabilized and domesticated. Grgas’s academic career has been as diverse as the humanistic disciplinary habitus allows: a provocative and popular lecturer, a researcher of tireless intellectual curiosity, a scholar testing the boundaries of disciplines, an enthusiastic and motivating mentor, a thoughtful and sensitive translator, or, as one of the contribution shows, an unobtrusive poet, Grgas has always displayed a remarkable intellectual energy in every aspect of his engagement with the varied and nowadays often embattled debates in the humanities. However, Grgas’s work as an Americanist, cultural theorist, translator, writer, mentor, and teacher doesn’t merely reflect the exciting, if uncontainable, shifts marking the discipline in the last couple of decades; rather, his intellectual labor has been committed to offering a new way of comprehending this change, its scope, direction, and consequences, so as to create an intense web of connections and interrelations where different disciplines talk to one another, without hastening to provide answers so much as to provoke the right kind of questions. The questioning and questing nature of Grgas’s work has marked his writing from the start, but it has intensified in his later writing as the humanities find themselves facing a whole new set of questions for the new millennium. His sustained effort to bring a new awareness of economic issues to discussions of culture and literature in the recent period has been both timely and critically engaged in its reflection on why this issue is particularly significant at this point in history. The layout of the Festschrift may be said to loosely reflect and acknowledge Grgas’s scholarly interests that have charted out his career in the field of the humanities. (from the Editors’ Preface)

In preparing this Festschrift, we had in mind a specific inflection of the concept of errancy, one that comes from the rich and layered work of the American scholar and philosopher William V. Spanos, who conceived it as a way of rendering the logos and telos of the American project subject to thorough rethinking and redefinition, both in history and at present. By calling attention to the complementarity of the work of the two scholars, Grgas and Spanos, who both hone their critical skills on the theme of the logic of the American project, we do not so much intend to claim a direct influence but rather wish to highlight the confluence, commingling, and inspiration that working in the humanities may engender. This commonality is featured in the work of Spanos and in the work of Grgas as a dedicated and passionate engagement with the practices and possibilities inscribed in the discipline, which also requires the scholar to move beyond the given and inhabit what Spanos calls a meta-level of thinking. Grgas’s work, located at the intersection of several disciplines within the humanities and social sciences (which is reflected in the principal themes of this Festschrift), reveals precisely such a commitment that has in the course of his long, fruitful and versatile career charted out a scholarly position always in the process of becoming, and never quite stabilized and domesticated. Grgas’s academic career has been as diverse as the humanistic disciplinary habitus allows: a provocative and popular lecturer, a researcher of tireless intellectual curiosity, a scholar testing the boundaries of disciplines, an enthusiastic and motivating mentor, a thoughtful and sensitive translator, or, as one of the contribution shows, an unobtrusive poet, Grgas has always displayed a remarkable intellectual energy in every aspect of his engagement with the varied and nowadays often embattled debates in the humanities. However, Grgas’s work as an Americanist, cultural theorist, translator, writer, mentor, and teacher doesn’t merely reflect the exciting, if uncontainable, shifts marking the discipline in the last couple of decades; rather, his intellectual labor has been committed to offering a new way of comprehending this change, its scope, direction, and consequences, so as to create an intense web of connections and interrelations where different disciplines talk to one another, without hastening to provide answers so much as to provoke the right kind of questions. The questioning and questing nature of Grgas’s work has marked his writing from the start, but it has intensified in his later writing as the humanities find themselves facing a whole new set of questions for the new millennium. His sustained effort to bring a new awareness of economic issues to discussions of culture and literature in the recent period has been both timely and critically engaged in its reflection on why this issue is particularly significant at this point in history. The layout of the Festschrift may be said to loosely reflect and acknowledge Grgas’s scholarly interests that have charted out his career in the field of the humanities. (from the Editors’ Preface)

Two new species of the genus Neelus Folsom, 1896, N. cvitanovici sp. nov. and N. lackovici sp. nov., are described from caves of Croatia. N. lackovici sp. nov. exhibit marked troglomorphic features such as extremely elongated ungua and antennae, larger body among others. Descriptions are completed with comparative tables for chaetotaxy of antennae and legs. Diagnostic table for the congeners and identification key to the world species are provided. Distribution records of other Neelus species in Croatian caves are added. Threats of troglobiotic Neelus species in Croatia are discussed.

The article focuses on the development of the flâneur figure within nineteenth-century and contemporary horror genre narratives. Initially conceptualized as a passive and disinterested observer of city streets, immersed in and intoxicated with the rich experience of the surrounding life, the flâneur fails to maintain his dispassionate poise and inevitably enters into interaction with both the city and people around him. This interaction is intrinsically linked to the expanding urbanization and the related processes of commercialization and commodification and, as this paper purports to show, it leads to the conceptualization of the flâneur as an aggressive stroller in the narratives pertaining to horror genre. In establishing the significance of the flâneur for the empirical and theoretical considerations of urban spaces which, as the nineteenth century nears its end, experience unprecedented growth and modernization, both Charles Baudelaire and subsequently Walter Benjamin use Edgar Allan Poe’s short story “The Man of the Crowd” as a starting point. The article examines the ways in which Poe’s two prototypical flâneur figures already reveal the ominous potential for the further development of the aggressive stroller. Using Poe’s short story as the analytical parameter, the article moves on to a more relevant analysis of Ryûhei Kitamura's 2008 film The Midnight Meat Train. The analysis of the two narratives in question is carried out within the theoretical framework of human geography and based on the seminal works of authors such as Yi-Fu Tuan and Peter Ackroyd. Their somewhat ominous and gloomy representation of urban experience provides an adequate background for critical considerations of the evolution of the flâneur towards an aggressive figure. Conclusively, the analysis shows that Kitamura’s contemporary narrative, while firmly grounded in the traditional conceptualizations of the flâneur and featuring, similarly to Poe’s text, two typical stroller figures, marks a more radical and definite departure from the standardized notion of the indifferent stroller and presents the aggressive flâneur as the sole figure that can survive on the streets of contemporary metropolises.

While numerous analyses of contemporary horror narratives/films provide almost an excess in interpretations and readings, one specific issue – the concept of space – remains widely unaddressed. By limiting itself to the understanding of various cases at hand through the prism of characters and other active participants in the narrative, the mainstream theoretical approaches typically underestimate and overlook the spatial paradigm as an element that constructively and actively contributes to both the creation of a horror storyline, as well as the articulation of a social and/or cultural critique. What the article proposes is a reading of two films – James Wan’s Insidious (2010) and Scott Derrickson’s Sinister (2012) through the application of Michel Foucault’s notion of heterotopias. As proposed by the analysis, the spatial paradigm within the examined cases is premised on the simultaneous coexistence and superposition of heterotopian spaces over regular ones. Such coexistence facilitates the creation of particular contexts within which domestic anxieties and dysfunctions start to articulate themselves into a proper critical discourse.

The species Heteromurus (Verhoeffiella) absoloni Kseneman, 1938 is redescribed in detail and characterized by its barcode, based on specimens from its type locality in Montenegro. A neotype is designated. Dorsal S-chaetotaxy is given for the first time in the subgenus Verhoeffiella. Chaeta morphology and distribution are thoroughly analyzed, in particular on antennae where 12 chaetal types are recognized. Several morphological features are newly described for the genus and for Heteromurinae. The widely disjunct distribution of the species is approached through morphological and molecular comparison of specimens from the type locality in Montenegro and from the Catalan population. We established that this last record is a new species described here as Heteromurus (Verhoeffiella) gamae sp. nov. New combination is proposed Heteromurus (Verhoeffiella) constantinellus (ĆurčićLučić in Lučić, ĆurčićMitić 2007) comb. nov. A table of all species of the subgenus is provided. The taxonomic status of Verhoeffiella and the problems of species discriminations in the subgenus are discussed.

Recent research of cave Collembola in Dinaric karst resulted in discovery of high regional diversification of the genus Verhoeffiella Absolon, 1900. The most striking feature of Verhoeffiella species is the high number of troglomorphic traits, which makes this genus a good model for studying morphological diversification and adaptation in subterranean environments. We explore the expression of various morphological modifications assumed to be linked to subterranean life, through detailed descriptions of four new species and redescription of two species including the type species of the genus. Species delimitations are confirmed by single locus (cytochrome c oxidase I) tree-based (Poisson tree processes) and distance-based (automatic barcode gap discovery) species delimitation approaches, which gave identical results. Morphological changes classically considered as adaptive for cave life and new, potentially troglomorphic characters for Collembola are discussed. For several of these characters, high morphological diversity between species and large decoupling in the development of different traits within species are recorded. Such a decoupling is also illustrated in the finding of two cases of Verhoeffiella species pairs at different levels of troglomorphy living in syntopy. We further provide several new differential characters of specific and possibly generic or supra-generic importance and describe for the first time among Collembola an original ‘distal organ’ on Ant. IV.