Conexão do Flávio (Gruta dos Brejões)

In June 2021, a cave diving expedition linked the Brejões I and II caves through an underwater passage, named Conexão do Flávio in tribute to a friend who had died and laid with 463 m of guideline. The link came after sixty years of earlier attempts to join the Brejões sumps, none of which had succeeded. The water in Conexão do Flávio has a greenish tint and stays at around 22 °C, while in other sumps of Brejões I it is dark and warmer, which suggests different sources, even though the bodies of water are no more than 800 m apart. It is said that Lapa dos Brejões was discovered in 1877. In 1977, paleontologists collected more than 5,000 fossil pieces in the cave, including remains of giant sloths, mastodons and armadillos. In the Jacaré River, inside Brejões I, lives the freshwater sponge Racekiela cavernicola, described as a new species and the first record of a freshwater sponge in a cave in Brazil.