OlmWeb

“What the hell is an Olm?! And why do you call yourself that?” I don’t know how many times I’ve gotten that question is an attempt to summarize all explanations I’ve ever served. So next time someone asks me about Olms I can just redirect them to this website and have it all at once. I’ve also written this article as sort of celebration of my self actually. It is now ten years since i started using the nickname Olmen and also ten years since I made my first website. If I count own personal websites this is also the tenth - so there’s a whole lot of tens going on here. Maybe I should’ve named this website XXX

The history of the Olm starts in 1996 when I created my first website which was coded by myself. I called it “Olmen’s Homepage”. I started using the nickname Olmen which I’d originally gotten from the (apparently italian) name Olmo or Olmos and to be honest I can’t remember why. The real nickname was actially “The Olm” but in swedish that translates into “Olmen”. So I actually used two different nicknames - The Olm when writing in English and Olmen when using swedish. Eventually Olmen became the used nickname but it still derives from the word Olm. “An Olm” becomes “en Olm” in swedish…

Enough about the boring story about how I started using the nickname. The first question still remains - what the hell is an olm. Here’s what:

Whoa! That kinda looks like a baby dragon or something. No, ladies and gentlemen, that is an Olm. The Proteus Olm (Proteus anguinus) is a salamander creature about 25-30 cm in length. The animal is white or slightly pink and has small extremities with two toes on the hind leg and three toes on the foreleg. It’s only natural habitats is in caves along the eastern cost of the Adriatic sea from Trieste in Italy to Herzegovina. It can also occasinally be found in Harz in Germany, in Moulis in France or in Grotte Oliero in Italy but this is because of human intervention.

In fact, this animal has fascinated scientists and the common man for centuries. It has some peculiar features and still shows remnaints from past evolutionary steps. Charles Darwin was fascinated by this creature and it’s written about in chapter 5 of his book “The Origin of Species: Effects of Use and Disuse. He calles them “wrecks of ancient life”.

Since it’s primal habitats is dark and cold caves it’s pale-pink in color and it has no eyes. It’s metabolism is also extremely slow and it’s believed that olms can be up to 100 years old. It’s also been shown that they can go on without food for six years! According to wikipedia there’s been one reported case in which an olm was placed in a jar in a refrigerator for more than a decade. It was reportedly still alive when finally removed, though with severe damage to its internal organs, including the reabsorption of its own digestive tract for sustenance.

Another interesting is, that olms grown up in daylight, get eyes and a brown skin. This are the remains of the evolution before the caves! But the eyes are not complete, some important parts of the optic nerve are missing, and so this olms have eyes but are still blind.

The olm breathes with gills behind its head, at the left and right side of the body. The gills are outside the body and are transparent. They look reddish because of the blood flowing through. But it is an amphibic animal and has also lungs to breath on land.

The Olm’s conservation status is now vulnerable, and it used to be a common species, but is now becoming rare because of water pollution in its restricted habitat and the taking of large numbers for the pet trade. It is however considered a pride among the locals and is even pictured on a slovanian coin.

So there you have it. Now you know what an olm is and why I call myself Olmen. Or actually wait - why do I still call myself Olmen knowing that this creature is a lazy bastard just eating, reproducing and kinda foating around. Well… need I say anything more?