Some of these might have been inspired by cavers' contacts with peculiar lifeforms in caves with a high hydrogen sulfide and sulfuric acid content which are even more corrosive than the environments they inhabit, such as the 'snottites', 'red goo', and 'green slime' encountered in the real-world Cueva de Villa Luz. The description of various 'genera' and 'species' of corrosive mineral oozes encountered by unwary miners underground, that can eat unnoticed through skin and flesh to the bone, date back at least to the works of Georg Agricola.
