The contractible subgraph of 5-connected graphs

An edge e of a k-connected graph G is said to be k-removable if G — e is still k-connected. A subgraph H of a k-connected graph is said to be k-contractible if its contraction results still in a k-connected graph. A k-connected graph with neither removable edge nor contractible subgraph is said to be minor minimally k-connected. In this paper, we show that there is a contractible subgraph in a 5-connected graph which contains a vertex who is not contained in any triangles. Hence, every vertex of minor minimally 5-connected graph is contained in some triangle.