Abstract
The paper surveys MIS3 and MIS2 records of molluscs and vertebrates from two caves in the High Tatra Mountains, situated close to the surface of the Vistulian mountain glaciers. The diversified communities with demanding elements and local endemite species appeared here undoubtedly even during the LGM.
In explanation of this fact we reconsidered paleoclimatic and paleo-environmental specificities of high mountain habitats during glaciation and proposed a model suggesting the conditions enabling continuous survival of demanding forms and alpine endemites just on the surface of mountain glaciers. With aid of robust indirect evidence we demonstrated that at least in the High Tatra Mountains, the surfaces of the Vistulian glaciers were colonized by a diversified community of small vertebrates including demanding and woodland elements.
Further, we proved that such conditions appeared there not only during the mild part of the Vistualian glaciation (MIS 3) but also during the time of LGM (MIS 2). We argued that the unexpected appearance of this kind of community on the surface area of the high mountain glacier necessitates reconsiderations of standard views on the glacial environment of mountain regions.
Multiple paleoclimatic and paleoenvironmental evidence suggests that the surface area of the glacial ice sheet experienced conditions resembling the current conditions of semi-open habitats in the high Western Sayan Mountains, i.e. those corresponding quite well to the conditions expected for a glacial refugium. Expecting such conditions in other high mountain regions, then, in regard to the extent of glacial ice sheets in European mountains, it cannot be excluded that the most important cryptic refugia for many mid-European taxa were on the mountain glaciers themselves, and - last but not least - sucregions might have attracted human interest as well.