Al Hoota Cave () is a cave located in

Al-Hamra' Al-Hamra' () was a Palestinian Arab village in the Safad Subdistrict. It was depopulated during the 1947–1948 Civil War in Mandatory Palestine on May 1, 1948, by the Palmach's First Battalion of Operation Yiftach. It was located 24.5 km ...

Ad Dakhiliyah Governorate Ad Dakhiliyah () is one of the eleven governorates (''muhafazah'') of Oman with Nizwa town as the regional center. It was previously a region ('' mintaqah''). It became a governorate on 28 October 2011. Provinces Ad Dakhiliyah Governorate cons ...

Oman Oman, officially the Sultanate of Oman, is a country located on the southeastern coast of the Arabian Peninsula in West Asia and the Middle East. It shares land borders with Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Yemen. Oman’s coastline ...

, that is long. The cave was first discovered by locals several hundred years ago and was officially opened as a tourist destination in December 2006. The cave houses over 100 animal species, including Omani blind cave fish,

bats Bats are flying mammals of the order Chiroptera (). With their forelimbs adapted as wings, they are the only mammals capable of true and sustained flight. Bats are more agile in flight than most birds, flying with their very long spread-out ...

arthropods Arthropods ( ) are invertebrates in the phylum Arthropoda. They possess an arthropod exoskeleton, exoskeleton with a cuticle made of chitin, often Mineralization (biology), mineralised with calcium carbonate, a body with differentiated (Metam ...

mollusks Mollusca is a phylum of protostomic invertebrate animals, whose members are known as molluscs or mollusks (). Around 76,000 extant species of molluscs are recognized, making it the second-largest animal phylum after Arthropoda. The num ...

snails A snail is a shelled gastropod. The name is most often applied to land snails, terrestrial molluscs, terrestrial pulmonate gastropod molluscs. However, the common name ''snail'' is also used for most of the members of the molluscan class Gas ...

and

water beetles A water beetle is a generalized name for any beetle that is adapted to living in water at any point in its life cycle. Most water beetles can only live in fresh water, with a few marine species that live in the intertidal zone or littoral zone. T ...

. Stalagmites from this cave yield data on the

palaeoclimate Paleoclimatology (American and British English spelling differences, British spelling, palaeoclimatology) is the scientific study of climates predating the invention of meteorological instruments, when no direct measurement data were available. ...

. It is believed to be the longest cave in Oman. The visitors were brought with an electric train into the cave; a dedicated entrance to tha cave was built for that purpose. Meanwhile, the train line is dismantled and the visitors are brought on an asphalt road by

golf cart A golf cart (alternatively known as a golf buggy or golf car) is a small motorized vehicle designed originally to carry two golfers and their golf clubs around a golf course with less effort than walking. Over time, variants were introduced t ...

s into the cave.https://www.drehscheibe-online.de/foren/read.php?030,11070170, retrieved on: 2025-03-08.

References

External links

Official website
Caves of Oman Wild caves {{Oman-stub