1/ I grew up near a toxic cave. We were told never to enter b/c the sulfur spring that flowed thru it made the air deadly to breathe. But to a boy with a wild imagination, the smell of brimstone just hinted at the dragon that lurked within. 30 years later, I got to explore it👇🧵 
2/Steamboat Spring's Sulphur Cave was designated a National Natural Landmark in 2021—this forbidden cave near my home. Why? The spelunking scientist David Steinmann of @DenverMuseumNS took me in to show me a wriggling new creature he found that came straight from fantasy books...
3/ But 1st, I gotta gush about all the other creepy wonderful cave life. Thousands of species of bacteria cover everything in fantastical formations. First up: biovermiculations—tangled masses of microbes and sediment that look like the vines in the Upside Down in #StrangerThings
4/Second: snottites! They're so named because they look like mucous dripping from the ceiling, and to caver humor, Snot + Stalactite = Snottite! They're actually colonies of bacteria that eat the hydrogen sulfide & excrete it as sulfuric acid, so they're literally dripping acid!
5/ Local lore says an exchange student went into the cave in the 60s w/ homemade air bottles & had to be pulled out convulsing. The cave wasn't explored fully until 2007. A team of scientists pumped in air & David was the 1st to go in. He had no idea the new creature he'd find...
6/ "When I first entered the cave, it seemed like a very pristine and undisturbed environment, almost like something on another planet," says David (pictured in 2007). "It reminds us of where we might one day find life in caves underground on other planets in our solar system."
7/ One reason Sulphur Cave is so interesting to scientists is that life that's evolved to live in its toxic, sulfurous environment models how life could evolve in caves on other planets that lack Earth's oxygen. And that brings us to the cave's most unique denizen: worm blobs.
8/ David and his colleagues discovered thousands of clumps of blood-red worms, which they named Limnodrilus sulphurensis. The worms need barely any oxygen and eat the bacteria, which lives off the cave's hydrogen sulfide--so an ecosystem that could happen on another planet...?
9/ The worms are categorized as extremophiles, a group of critters that're catnip for scientists b/c they've evolved all sorts of novel compounds & processes to survive harsh habitats that have proved to be useful in creating everything from biofuel to lactose-free milk to soap.
10/ David says more and more researchers have contacted him over the years to send them worms to look for new antibiotics and to study how the worms persist with so little oxygen and how they detoxify the hydrogen sulfide.
11/ Along with us were some @GeorgiaTech students from the @BhamlaLab, who were collecting the worms to help develop models for a worm blob swarm robot that can explore dangerous, difficult terrain, like other caves, the ocean or other planets.
12/But I was here to explore this forbidden place that figured so big in the mythology of my childhood. To meet my dragons. Two weeks after I went into the cave, my dad passed. So I dedicate this one to you, David Scott, for imbuing the spirit of adventure npr.org/2022/08/31/112…
13/Thanks to @CityofSteamboat for allowing us in the cave (do not try this at home, kids!), to @thomasuylu for producing, @gabrielspitzer for editing, @emilykwong1234 for hosting, @_rachelcarlson for factchecking & to Norm R. Thompson, Nate Steinmann & @CityofSteamboat for photos
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