"Are there new eggs?" was the perfectly innocent question asked during a school trip by Jaka Kresnik, a 13-year-old pupil from the Loče Primary School, who has thus gone down in the history of Postojna Cave as a "new discoverer". Jaka was the first person to notice tiny olm eggs in one of the cave aquariums, thus surprising even the tour guide and the cave biologists with his question. Of course, this has resulted in immense joy and excitement! And indeed, one of Postojna Cave's female olms has laid some eggs, this time in the Vivarium. We'll soon have a new brood of baby dragons.

The first thing for the team to take care of was make sure our new treasure is safe. Katarina has used dark felt to darken the aquarium and thus secure the area from prying eyes. IR cameras have been turned on and will be used to film the female olm during the egg-laying process and capture the first images of the eggs of our future baby dragons.

Our female olm has been hard at work laying eggs. There's now 24 of them and cleavage (the division of cells) is progressing smoothly. One of the eggs in particular stands out from all the rest: we are witnessing a rare thing, i.e. two eggs inside a single egg jelly coat! Fingers crossed for twins!

We were staring at the twins full of hope and excitement when there was an unexpected turn of events. After several long attempts, the female olm devoured the egg jelly coat containing the two eggs. For a bit there was nothing but silence and the team's mood swung back and forth between sadness and disappointment. All sorts of new scientific questions have arisen, the main one being WHY.

The wetsuit was prepared and the moving team ready for action. The focus was on 43 precious eggs. Biologist Katarina dived into the aquarium and, assisted by a fellow biologist Primož and the head of the cave laboratory, successfully completed the "migration" operation with surgical precision, After a process lasting several hours, the baby-dragons-to-be were moved into two completely new aquariums, carefully planned with our own know-how.

Decaying eggs can endanger the rest of the brood. The biologist noticed abnormal development and decay in two more eggs, which were immediately removed.

The larvae are now already happily dancing inside their egg jelly coats, getting ready to hatch.

All the positive and exciting developments have been accompanied by a discovery that gives reason for concern: our biologist has noticed microplastics even in the cave rainwater, which seeps into the cave through soil layers that are several metres in depth.

The baby dragons are now already showing how strong they are. They have turned on their bellies, got up on their legs and are already moving with their help. 

This day will go down in history! The very last of the baby olms from the 2022 brood is finally here and the record-breaking 74% reproduction rate has been achieved!

The last baby olm, the 32^nd one, has finally made it out. Halfway out of the egg jelly coat, it was unable to hatch for days. Our head of the cave laboratory realised this was an emergency. Giving him step-by-step instructions via phone, she directed the biologist Primož, who used a precise technique to remove the egg jelly coat from the baby olm, helping him come into the world.