Eugenio de Bellard Pietri - Cave Exploration

Cave Exploration

Eugenio de Bellard was the first Venezuelan to make cave exploration a serious dedication, and throughout his life he worked to make the first speleological atlas of Venezuela. Among the many explorations he carried the best and most appreciated is the one he headed in 1957 to reach the end of the Cueva del Guácharo, when they crossed beyond what was until then thought the end of the cave and instead they found that there were 8 more kilometers left of galleries and stunning rooms.

He headed several cave searching and exploring multi-discipline expeditions; the last of which in 1987, he discovered and/or explored 40 new seashore caves in the eastern Paria Peninsula, and conducted research on the flora and fauna of the peninsula. Among them is that there are more than 300 caves in Paria alone and are populated by guacharos (Steatornis caripensis) which are unusual, because these caves are all at sea level and it was believed that guacharos only dwelled at higher altitudes, never below 500 meters.

He directed and organized three successful explorations into the Amazon jungle, to places like the top of Tepuis with gigantic holes, to Tapirapeco, where they were the first non-Amazonian humans to be seen by several tribes in the border between Brazil and Venezuela. These expedition brought an enormous wealth of new species to science and proved that the high tepuis of the Amazon were isolated enough to allow the evolution of separate species of insects, orchids, lizards and even birds.

Eugenio de Bellard has published several scientific works, among them a History of Speleology in Venezuela that covers the time between 1678 and 1950.