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CARLSBAD, N.M. – A Cheetos snack bag left behind in a cave at New Mexico’s Carlsbad Caverns National Park led to park officials condemning the seemingly innocuous litter for instead disrupting the delicate underground ecosystem.
The snack bag was dropped in the Big Room, the largest single cave chamber by volume in North America, according to the NPS.
They said the leftover Cheetos provided an ideal environment for hosting fungi and microbial life, as the processed corn in the snack was softened by the humidity of the cave.
The Cheeto bag.
(Carlsbad Caverns National Park / FOX Weather)
This led to creatures, such as cave crickets, mites, spiders and flies, forming a temporary food web and spreading the nutrients in the Cheetos throughout the cave and formations, the NPS added.
In doing so, molds were carried higher up the cave walls and other surfaces, where they began to fruit, die and cause a stench.
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The NPS said park rangers spent 20 minutes removing the mold and foreign detrius from the cave surfaces.
Cave formations along the Big Room Trail.
(Carlsbad Caverns National Park / FOX Weather)
“At the scale of human perspective, a spilled snack bag may seem trivial, but to the life of the cave it can be world changing,” they noted.
Carlsbad Caverns National Park is home to more than 119 caves, which formed when limestone was dissolved by sulfuric acid, according to the NPS.
No food and drink are allowed in the caves, except for plain water.