Mánfai Cave

Mánfai Cave is one of the highly protected caves of Hungary. It is located in Mánfa, within the Danube–Drava National Park. It is the fourth longest cave in the Mecsek. It is one of the five highly protected caves of the mountain range. Among the Mecsek caves, this cave has the largest entrance. In the past, the cave water helped supply water to Komló.

Description

It is situated in the Western Mecsek Landscape Protection Area, on the eastern edge of the Western Mecsek, about three kilometres west‑southwest from the inner part of Mánfa, at the lower section of the Deep Valley, also called Great Deep Valley, at the meeting point of the Deep Valley and the Jewish Valley. It is located at a place often visited by tourists and accessible by car. It has three entrances, which are locked. One entrance is the largest, the Mecsek cave entrance.

Middle Triassic, formed in gray, anisian limestone, but in the enclosing rock dolomite and dolomitic limestone layers appear in some places. After the largest entrance there is an inactive cave section about 30 metres long and a wall separates it from the part connected to the water supply reservoir. Various stalactites can be observed on the ceiling, along the fracture lines. The stalactites were formed because of leaching water. The tectonic conditions and the poorly soluble dolomite caused the small‑cross‑section siphons to develop. Old dripstone formations are found in the ceiling cavities of the wide and high entrance area. In the original cave there were also few formations, but due to the development now dripstone exists only in the remaining side chambers and domes. A continuous black manganese staining covers the passage after the second siphon. The water supply’s built, regulated corridor has completely lost its natural state. Approximately 100 000 cubic metres per year is the flow of the cave stream. The water intakes are located in the Jewish Valley. The Gyula spring in the cave was the original emergence of the cave stream. The water‑collecting area of the active, stream cave is 2.8 square kilometres, of which 25 percent is non‑karstic Triassic sandstone.

The natural state of the cave has changed dramatically due to water management utilization. In most passages the development caused irreversible damage, especially from explosions. The restoration of the almost natural state would be helped at the end of the utilization if the now unnecessary technical facilities were removed. Its end is a reinforced‑concrete dam with a pipe outlet, behind which the passage is probably filled by a water column reaching the ceiling. The passage beyond the dam, which was formerly the habitat of endemic, aquatic invertebrates, is now impassable. It can be visited with permission and basic cave‑tour equipment. Visits are restricted during the bats’ winter hibernation period. A maximum of two groups may tour it per day and each group may consist of up to 20 persons. Permission from the Danube–Drava National Park Directorate is required to view the upper part. The national park’s permission and the operator’s consent are required to enter the part utilized by the water utility.

The waters draining in the Devil’s Hole and the Zsidóvölgy cave passage, as well as in the Zsidó‑völgy No. 3 water intake, probably appear in the cave.

One of the habitats of the Hungarian blind snail. Many bat species occur in the cave. Approximately 19 bat species breed or roost there. Antal Gebhardt recorded 159 animal species present in the cave, of which five are cave‑dwelling, 16 are cave guests, 31 are cave‑loving and 107 are cave‑visiting species. The cave‑dwelling species include a cave water snail, Lartetia gebhardti, a blind water beetle, Stenasellus hungaricus robustus, a blind amphipod, Niphargus molnari, and two whirlworm species first described from this locality, Dendrocoelides pannonicus and Pilycelis tóthi.

The fourth longest cave in the Mecsek is the Abaligeti Cave, after the Spiral Water Well and the Orfűi Water Source Cave. It is one of the five specially protected caves in the Mecsek, the other four being the Abaligeti Cave, the Mészégető Springs Cave, the Orfűi Water Source Cave and the Spiral Water Well. It is the only specially protected cave located in Mánfa.

In 1931 the cave was first called the Mánfai Hole in its literature. The cave also appears in literature under the names Gyula Cave (Bertalan 1976), Gyula cave (Szabó Pál 1961), Kő-lik (Gaál 1944), Kőlik (Kaán 1931), Kőlyik Cave (Dudich 1925), Kő-lyuk (Kordos 1984), Kőlyuk (Myskowszky 1905), Kőlyuk Cave (Berényi Üveges 1967), M (Bertalan 1976), Mánfa Cave (Kordos 1977), Mánfai Cave (Kadić 1939), Mánfai cave (Kadić 1922–1925), Mánfai Kőlik (Dudich 1932), Mánfai Kőlyuk (Boros 1935), Mánfai‑Kő‑lyuk (Bertalan, Schőnviszky 1973‑1974), Mánfai Kő‑lyuk (Kordos 1978), Mánfai‑Kőlyuk (Erős 1965), Mánfai Kőlyuk Cave (Kordos 1975‑1980), Mánfa‑kőlyuk (Takácsné, Üszterhás, Juhász, Kraus 1989), Zichy Cave (Vadász 1940), Zichy Gyula Cave (Bertalan 1976) and Zichy Gyula cave (Kordos 1984).