ABSTRACT Cover illustration. Like most other cave animals, the Proteus anguinus anguinus (cave‐dwelling salamander) experiences periodically poor and discontinuous food supply and/or intermittent hypoxia that may occur for long periods in the subterranean environments. The salamander adjusts its metabolism and utilization of metabolic reserves to these fluctuating periods of food supply. In this issue of the Journal of Morphology, Mali and coauthors studied morphological and biochemical changes of liver tissue of the cave‐dwelling salamander during periods of food deprivation (pp 887–900). With a combination of qualitative morphological and quantitative biochemical data, the authors evaluate the adaptive capacity of the liver and the importance of the liver as an energy storing organ.