Why Is the Olm Called a Baby Dragon? Legends of Slovenia

Where did the baby dragon legend come from?

The olm lives in the Dinaric karst, a limestone landscape full of caves, sinkholes and hidden rivers. Most of the time olms stay deep underground, out of sight. But karst water levels can rise very fast after heavy rain, and strong floods sometimes swept olms out through springs into streams and pools on the surface.

For people living nearby, these were strange finds. A long, pale animal with tiny legs, a flat snout, no visible eyes and red feathery tufts on its head looked like nothing else they knew. It came from a dark world beneath the ground that nobody could enter, and dragons were already part of local folklore. The obvious explanation was that a great dragon lived inside the mountain and these were its young.

How Valvasor recorded the story

The first written account of the olm comes from Johann Weikhard von Valvasor, a nobleman and scholar from Carniola, a historical region that covered much of today’s Slovenia. In 1689 he published Die Ehre deß Herzogthums Crain (The Glory of the Duchy of Carniola), a huge work of 15 books in four volumes describing the region’s landscapes, history and customs.

Valvasor reported that local people believed the small creatures washed out after rain were dragon offspring. He was not convinced by the legend himself and described the animal as something more like a small lizard or worm. Valvasor was a pioneer of karst research, and his study of the vanishing Lake Cerknica, which fills and drains through underground channels, earned him membership in the Royal Society in London in 1687.

How the dragon became a scientific celebrity

In the 18th century, specimens reached Giovanni Antonio Scopoli, a physician working in the mercury-mining town of Idrija, who sent them to other naturalists. In 1768 Josephus Nicolaus Laurenti gave the animal its scientific name, Proteus anguinus, after Proteus, a shape-changing sea god of Greek myth, and the Latin for snake-like.

The first olm actually found inside a cave was collected in 1797 in the Postojna cave system. In the 19th century the olm became famous across Europe. Thousands were sent to researchers and collectors, and olms were even sold to visitors at Postojna as curiosities. Charles Darwin mentioned the blind Proteus in On the Origin of Species (1859) as an example of how cave life changes animals. To learn how olms manage without sight, see Are olms blind?.

Postojna Cave and the 2016 dragon hatching

Postojna Cave in southwestern Slovenia is one of Europe’s most visited show caves, and the olm is its star. Visitors ride a cave train deep underground and can see olms in a vivarium and an aquarium inside the cave. The cave’s research and its famous cave animals helped make Postojna one of the birthplaces of biospeleology, the study of life in caves.

In January 2016, a female olm in the cave’s aquarium began laying more than 50 eggs. Because olms breed so rarely, only about once every 12.5 years in captivity, and eggs are almost never seen in the wild, the event drew attention around the world. Between late May and mid-July 2016, 22 baby olms hatched, and the story of Postojna’s “baby dragons” made headlines far beyond Slovenia.

Does the olm deserve its dragon name?

In some ways the legend fits surprisingly well. The olm lives in hidden caves, can survive for years without food and may live for more than 100 years; see How long do olms live?. With its long body, small legs and frilly red gills, it does look like a tiny, pale dragon.

In every other way it is the opposite of a monster. The olm is a harmless salamander about 20–30 cm (8–12 in) long and weighing only about 15–20 g (0.5–0.7 oz). It eats tiny crustaceans, snails and insect larvae, and it is listed as Vulnerable on the IUCN Red List because its cave waters are so easily polluted.

The olm as a symbol of Slovenia

Today the olm is one of Slovenia’s best-loved natural symbols. Slovenes usually call it človeška ribica, the “human fish”, because of its flesh-colored skin. It appeared on a Slovenian tolar coin before the country adopted the euro in 2007, it features in the coat of arms of the town of Postojna, and it gave its name to Proteus, Slovenia’s oldest popular science magazine, first published in 1933.

Dragons remain part of Slovene culture in other ways too. A dragon is the symbol of the capital, Ljubljana, and stands on the city’s coat of arms and its famous Dragon Bridge, although that legend is separate from the olm. Still, the pale baby dragons of the caves remain one of the country’s most unusual claims to fame.