Waulpane Cave

Waulpane Cave

Waulpane Cave (Photo credit: Ravindu Samarasinghe, Google Street View) Waulpane Cave (Sinhala: වවුල්පනේ හුණුගල් ගුහාව) is a limestone cavern in the Kumburugamuwa Grama Niladhari Division in Ratnapura District, Sri Lanka. It is located about 278 m above sea level at the eastern slopes of Bulutota Rakwana Mountain Range (Thamodi & Kumara, 2020). The cave is surrounded by a tropical rainforest extending about 30 acres (Thamodi & Kumara, 2020). The cave was first discovered by a surveyor who engaged in a topographical survey in 1938 (Abeyawardana, 2002). It is about 50,000 cu. m in size and 425 m in length (Abeyawardana, 2002; Seneviratne et al., 2009). The cave is called Waulpane or the "cave of bats" probably due to the enormous number of bats that inhabit the cavern (Abeyawardana, 2002; Thamodi & Kumara, 2020). It is estimated that approximately 800,000-1,000,000 bats belonging to 7 species live in the cave (Abeyawardana, 2002; Thamodi & Kumara, 2020).  A water s…