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Blend of snot(“mucus, especially nasal mucus”) + stalactite, possibly coined by James A. Pisarowicz in unpublished field notes of an exploration of the Villa Luz Cave in Tabasco, Mexico, in 1988.[1]
1999, Michael Ray Taylor, “April 18, 1998”, in Dark Life: Martian Nanobacteria, Rock-eating Cave Bugs, and Other Extreme Organisms of Inner Earth and Outer Space, New York, N.Y.: Scribner, →ISBN, pages 252–253:
We worked our way past the gypsum bank to a small, snottite-laden room around a corner from it. A few days earlier, Martin and his crew had filmed Diana sampling a snottite here as she discussed the strangeness of multiple life forms adapting to such an extremely acidic microenvironment. The snottites held perhaps hundreds of strange microbial species wrapped in gypsum crystals, and also small spiders and gnats that ranged freely up and down them, appearing wholly unperturbed by the acid.
1999 April, Louise D. Hose, James A. Pisarowicz, “Cueva de Villa Luz, Tabasco, Mexico: Reconnaissance Study of an Active Sulfur Spring Cave and Ecosystem”, in Louise D. Hose, editor, Journal of Cave and Karst Studies: The National Speleological Society Bulletin, volume 61, number 1, Huntsville, Ala.: National Speleological Society, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 2024-03-02, pages 14 and 15:
[Page 14, column 1] This expedition also began investigating the acidity of drips from snottites in the cave. […] [Page 15, column 2] Inspection revealed that the "snottites" are communities of microbes similar to microbial mats commonly associated with sulfur-rich surface springs, but these colonies are suspended vertically.
Highly acidic (pH 0–1) biofilms, known as ‘snottites’, form on the walls and ceilings of hydrogen sulfide-rich caves. […]Snottites from the Frasassi cave system (Italy) are dominated (>70% of cells) by Acidithiobacillus thiooxidans, with smaller populations including an archaeon in the uncultivated ‘G-plasma’ clade of Thermoplasmatales (>15%) and a bacterium in the Acidimicrobiaceae family (>5%). […] Based on combined metagenomic, molecular and geochemical evidence, we suggest that Acidithiobacillus is the snottite architect and main primary producer, and that snottite morphology and distributions in the cave environment are directly related to the supply of C, N and energy substrates from the cave atmosphere.
Translations
colony of bacteria that hangs in a sheet from the ceilings of some caves
Macedonian: please add this translation if you can
References
^ Louise D. Hose, James A. Pisarowicz (1999 April) “Cueva de Villa Luz, Tabasco, Mexico: Reconnaissance Study of an Active Sulfur Spring Cave and Ecosystem”, in Louise D. Hose, editor, Journal of Cave and Karst Studies: The National Speleological Society Bulletin, volume 61, number 1, Huntsville, Ala.: National Speleological Society, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 2024-03-02, page 15, column 2: “Unique to Villa Luz are growths of white, mucous-like soda straws, curtains, and "u-loops" up to 50 cm long suspended from walls and ceilings[…]. Original explorers referred to these deposits as "snottites" (Pisarowicz 1988c).”
