Does someone have a photo they could send me, as well as anything else they'd like to add?
Thanks, Mark From: Carl Kunath [mailto:carl.kun...@suddenlink.net] Sent: Friday, March 19, 2010 12:32 AM To: TexasCavers Subject: [Texascavers] Robert W. "Bob" Mitchell As has previously been noted here, we have lost a very important figure in our caving community, most particularly in the science of biospeleology. Others will doubtless post memories and comments about Bob in the days to come. For now, I offer these comments extracted from pages 289 and 290 of the chapter on The History of Texas Cave Biology in 50 Years of Texas Caving: Robert W. Mitchell, a graduate student at the University of Texas in Austin, made a detailed study of the biology and ecology of the ground beetle Rhadine subterranea (Van Dyke) in Beck Ranch Cave in the early 1960s. He set up an underground laboratory in the cave so that he could study the beetles in their natural climate. His dissertation was completed in 1965 and is considered a landmark study in cave ecology. He inspired Reddell to compile a checklist of the cave fauna of Texas, published in 1965-1967, and collaborated with Reddell in the description of the blind salamander Eurycea tridentifera from Honey Creek Cave. After receiving his Ph.D. he joined the faculty of Texas Technological College (now Texas Tech University) and became one of the leading cave biologists in the United States. Although his primary research interest turned to the amazingly rich cave fauna of Mexico, he conducted a significant study on the ecology of Fern Cave, Val Verde County. This study was the first serious examination of the guano community in a large Mexican freetail bat cave. The "discovery" by cavers of Mexico in the 1960s and the increasing time spent exploring, mapping, and biologically studying the caves of Mexico resulted in a gradual decline in caving and cave biology in Texas. Reddell left for the University of Kentucky in 1967 but, finding it too cold and remote from Mexico, returned to study under Mitchell at Texas Tech in the fall of 1968. Mitchell's lab at Texas Tech became a center for cave biology studies, with his graduate students including, besides Reddell, Glen Campbell studying cave cricket ecology, William Elliott studying the Texas cave millipedes of the genus Speodesmus, Virginia Tipton studying the Mexican ricinuleids (a rare order of Arcahnida), and Suzanne Fowler (now Wiley) studying cave Rhadine. Bob was a personal friend and I shall miss him greatly. We are diminished. ===Carl Kunath
