Part 3

ALGAE AND ONE-CELLED ANIMALS INVERTEBRATE LARVAE PERIPHYTON MASS SAWGRASS SAWGRASS DIES AND MAKES PEAT

Every other plant-and-animal community in the park—hammock, mangrove swamp, pineland, etc.—is an association of large and small organisms sharing a physical environment. It is impossible to understand either the park as a whole or the life of a single creature without being aware of these interrelationships.

Alligator Hole in the Glades

Out in the sunny glades the broad leaves of the alligator flag mark the location of an alligator hole. This is the most incredible ecosystem of all the worlds within the world of the park; for in a sense the alligator is the keeper of the everglades.

With feet and snout these reptiles clear out the vegetation and muck from the larger holes in the limestone. In the dry season, when the floor of the glades checks in the sun, these holes are oases. Then large numbers of fish, turtles, snails, and other fresh-water animals take refuge in the holes, moving right in with the alligators. Enough of these water-dependent creatures thus survive the drought to repopulate the glades when the rains return. Birds and mammals join the migration of the everglades animal kingdom to the alligator holes, feed upon the concentrated life in them—and in turn occasionally become food for their alligator hosts.

Lily pads float on the surface. Around the edges arrowleaf, cattails, and other emergent plants grow. Behind them on higher muckland, much of which is created by the alligators as they pile up plant debris, stand ferns, wildflowers, and swamp trees. Algae thrive in the water. The rooted water plants might become so dense as to hinder the movement and growth of the fish, were it not for the weeding activities of the alligators. With the old reptiles keeping the pool open, the fish thrive, and alligator and guests live well.

Plants piled beside the hole by the alligator decay and form soil with mud and marl. Ferns, wildflowers, and tree seedlings take root, and eventually the alligator hole may be the center of a tree island.

So, it’s easy to see how important the alligator is to the ecology of the park. Unfortunately for this reptile, many people in the past believed only in the value of its hide. Hunting for alligators became profitable in the mid-1880’s and continued until the 1960’s. In 1961 Florida prohibited all hunting of alligators, but poaching continued to take its toll. Finally, the Federal Endangered Species Act of 1969 protected the alligator by eliminating all hunting and trafficking in hides.

As a result of complete protection, the alligator has increased greatly in number. They are no longer an endangered species in Florida, and they can easily be found in gator holes and sloughs. Today alligators are eagerly sought by visitors to Everglades National Park who are anxious to see and photograph this unique creature. Once again, the alligator is the keeper of the everglades.

FOOD FISH (gar, bass, etc.) BIRDS TURTLES (soft-shelled and others) MAMMALS RACCOON SNAPPING TURTLE GREEN HERON

SNOWY EGRET WHITE IBIS WOOD STORK MOSQUITO (15 species) SNAIL EGGS PIG FROG ALLIGATOR NEST DRY SEASON WATER LEVEL GAMBUSIA KILLIFISH SUNFISH LARGEMOUTHED BASS FLORIDA SPOTTED GAR FLORIDA SOFT-SHELLED TURTLE 1 SPIKE RUSH 2 PINK GERARDIA 3 SPIDER LILY 4 CATTAIL 5 PICKEREL WEED 6 ARROWHEAD 7 WATER LILY 8 SPATTERDOCK 9 BLADDERWORT 10 ALLIGATOR FLAG 11 MORNINGGLORY

DISCOVERING EVERGLADES PLANTS AND ANIMALS

Everglades National Park, with its array of plant communities—ranging from the pines and palmettos rooted in the pitted limestone bedrock of the park’s dry uplands, through the periphyton-based marsh community and the brackish mangrove swamp, to the highly saline waters of Florida Bay—is an amateur botanist’s paradise. Many of the park’s plants are found nowhere else in the United States. Only here at the southern tip of the Florida peninsula do tropical trees and orchids mingle with oaks and pines.

This book is not intended to be a manual for identification of the Everglades plants. You will need to arm yourself with appropriate field guides to ferns, orchids, aquatic plants, trees, or whatever your special interest may be. The reading list in the appendix suggests a few.

While the park is a mecca for students of plantlife, you must keep one thing in mind: your collecting will be limited to photographs (and, if you’re an artist, drawings). _No specimens may be removed or disturbed._ Fortunately, with today’s versatile cameras and high-quality color films you can take home a complete and accurate record of your plant discoveries.

Much of our present knowledge of Everglades plantlife has been garnered by amateurs. Much more needs to be accumulated before an environmental management program for the park can be perfected, and serious students of botany are invited to make their data available to the park staff.

As for wild animals, one hardly needs to look for them in this park! Most visitors come here, at least partly, for that reason. And even those not seeking wildlife should be alert to avoid stepping on or running down the slower or less wary creatures. But animal watching is a great pastime, and it pays to learn to do it right. A few suggestions may help you make the most of your experience in Everglades.

Big Cypress Swamp Mangrove Swamp Pine Rockland Coastal Prairie Everglades BIRDS AND REPTILES Heron Rookeries Brown Pelican Rookeries Spoonbill Rookeries Wood Stork Rookeries Sea Turtle Nesting Recent Crocodile Nesting

A notebook in which to record your observations will help you discover that this park is not just a landscape of grass, water, and trees where a lot of animals happen to live—but a complex, subtropical world of plant-and-animal communities, each distinct and yet dependent upon the others. To gain real understanding of this world you will need certain skills and some good habits. Ability to identify what you see—with the help of good field guides (_see_ reading list) and quite a bit of practice—will make things easier and much more enjoyable.

Knowing where to look for the animals helps; this book and the field guides are useful for this. You’ll find that some species are seen only in certain parts of the park, while others roam far and wide. Don’t look for the crocodile in the fresh-water glades—nor for the round-tailed muskrat in the mangroves. On the other hand, don’t be surprised to see the raccoon or its tracks in almost any part of the park.

Keep in mind that all species in the national parks are protected by law. Most wild animals are harmless as long as they are not molested. If you encounter an animal you aren’t sure about, simply keep out of its way; don’t try to harm it or drive it off. Always remember that each animal is part of the Everglades community; you cannot disturb it without affecting everything else.

Air Plants

Long before you have learned to distinguish the major plant communities, you will be aware of the air plants—or epiphytes—that grow so profusely in Everglades. Epiphytes are non-parasitic plants that grow on other plants, getting their nourishment from the air. Best known is Spanish moss, which festoons the trees of the coastal South from Virginia to Texas; this plant is used by the swallow-tailed kite in constructing its beautiful nest. Despite its name, Spanish moss is actually a member of the pineapple family—the bromeliads. Bromeliads are the most conspicuous of the park’s air plants. The epiphytic orchids, though less common, are celebrated for their beauty; their fame, unfortunately, has led to their widespread destruction. There are also epiphytic ferns, trees, and vines; and one cactus, the mistletoe cactus, has taken to the air.

Air plants are highly specialized for making a living under crowded conditions; there are more than 2,000 species of plants competing for sun and water in southern Florida. The epiphytes have adapted to the problem of space by growing on other plants. Their roots, although they absorb some water and minerals, are primarily anchors. Living in an atmosphere that fluctuates between drought and humidity, they have evolved several water-conserving tricks. Some have a reduced number of leaves; others have tough skins that resist loss of water through transpiration; still others have thick stems, called pseudobulbs, that store moisture. The bromeliads are particularly ingenious: many have leaves shaped in such a way that they hold rainwater in vaselike reservoirs at their bases. Mosquitoes and tree frogs breed in these tiny reservoirs, and in dry periods many arboreal animals seek the dew that collects here.

Most of the orchids and bromeliads grow in the dimly lit tropical hardwood hammocks and cypress sloughs. A few species, however, having adapted to the sunlight, live on dwarf mangroves and the scattered buttonwoods, pond apples, willows, and cocoplums of the glades. The butterfly and cowhorn orchids are sun lovers, as are the twisted, banded, and stiff-leaved bromeliads. All have adapted to the sun with dew-condensing mechanisms or vases at the bottom of the clustered leaves.

One tree, the strangler fig, starts as an epiphytic seedling on the branches of other trees. Eventually, however, it drops long aerial roots directly to the ground or entwines them about the trunk of the host tree—which in time dies, leaving a large fig tree in its place.

Of all Everglades plants, the epiphytic orchids are most fascinating to man—a fact which largely explains their decline. Of some 50,000 species around the world (the orchids being one of the largest of plant families), the park has only a few. Fire, loss of habitat due to agriculture and construction, and poaching by both commercial and amateur collectors have brought about the extermination of some and have made others exceedingly rare. Some are rare because of special life requirements. For example, a few must live in association with a certain fungus that coats their roots and provides specific nutrients.

The largest orchid in the park is the cowhorn, some specimens of which weigh as much as 75 pounds. Unfortunately, this orchid has been a popular item for orchid growers and collectors and is becoming rare in Florida. Poachers have practically eliminated it from the park. In the late 1960s Boy Scout friends of Everglades salvaged many orchids from hammocks about to be bulldozed for the jetport. By laboriously tying them to trees in the park, they assured the survival of the plants.

The night-blooming epidendrum is perhaps the most beautiful of the park’s orchids. It is widespread and fairly common in Everglades, occurring in all ecosystems. Flowering throughout the year, it bears its white, spiderlike blossoms, 2 inches across, one at a time. It is especially fragrant at night—hence its name.

Epiphytic orchids have the smallest seeds of any flowering plants. Dustlike, they travel far and wide on the air; it is believed that over eons all species of Florida orchids arrived on the wind from South America and the West Indies.

The giant wildpine is a spectacular bromeliad that grows on the sturdy limbs of buttonwoods, spreading to 48 inches and developing a flower stalk 6 feet long.

Of the approximately 20 species of epiphytic ferns in the park, the most common is the curious resurrection fern. Sometimes called the poor man’s barometer, it has leaves that in dry weather curl under and turn brown but with the coming of rain quickly unfold and turn bright green, making instant gardens of the logs, limbs, and branches on which they grow.

Watch for the air plants (as well as the trees and other wildflowers) that have been labeled along the trails and boardwalks. You will be able to examine some of them closely—but leave them unharmed for future visitors!

Mammals

In the drowned habitats of Everglades it is not surprising to find water-bound mammals such as the porpoise; or fish-eating amphibious mammals such as the otter; or even land mammals, such as the raccoon, that characteristically feed upon aquatic life. But to see mammals that one ordinarily does not associate with water behaving as though they were born to it is another matter. The white-tailed deer is an example. It is so much a part of this watery environment that you will most likely observe it far out in the glades, feeding upon aquatic plants or bounding over the marsh. Very probably the deer you see was born on one of the tree islands, and has never been out of sight of the sawgrass river.

Many other mammals of Everglades are adapted to a semi-aquatic existence. The park’s only representative of the hare-and-rabbit clan is the marsh rabbit; smaller than its close relative, the familiar cottontail of fields and woodlands, it is as comfortable in this wet world as if it had webbed feet. So don’t be startled if you see a rabbit swimming here! The park’s rodents include the marsh rice rat and round-tailed muskrat, also at home in a watery environment.

The playful otter, though it may travel long distances overland, is a famous water-lover. Lucky is the visitor who sees a family of these large relatives of the weasel! The otter’s smaller cousin, the everglades mink, is also a denizen of the marsh and a predator in the food web; but you are not likely to see this wary animal.

Raccoons and opossums, adaptable creatures that they are, live in all the park’s environments—except in the air and under water. Their diets are as wide-ranging as their habitat. The raccoon, though it has a taste for aquatic animals such as fish, frogs, and crayfish, also consumes small land vertebrates and various plant foods. The opossum eats virtually anything in the animal kingdom that it can find and subdue, as well as a wide variety of plant materials.

SOME IMPORTANT EVERGLADES MAMMALS

SPECIES PINE HARDWOOD GLADES MANGROVE FRESH- FLORIDA COASTAL REMARKS ROCKLAND HAMMOCK SWAMP WATER BAY and PRAIRIE SWAMPS KEYS

Opossum X X X X X X X Short-tailed X Shrew Least Shrew X Marsh Rabbit X X X X X X Fox Squirrel X ? Rice Rat X X Cotton Mouse X X X X Hispid Cotton X Rat Florida Water X X Rat Raccoon X X X X X X X Abundant Black Bear ? ? ? ? ? ? Very rare Mink X X River Otter X X Gray Fox [1]X Bobcat X X X X X X Florida panther X X X X Rare White-tailed X X X X X Deer Bottle-nosed X Dolphin Manatee [2]X X

[1]In pinelands.

[2]Estuaries.

South Florida is the last known refuge in the world for a sub-species of cougar known as the Florida panther. This large, beautiful cat is on the endangered species list. Today many groups and individuals are working to keep this predator a part of the environment. Their efforts have resulted in methods to assist panther recovery: lower speed limits and highway culverts and bridges, to mention only two. With continued assistance, the panther may remain a part of the Everglades for years to come.

Because it is much more numerous and much less secretive in its habits, the bobcat is more likely to be encountered by park visitors than is the cougar. Keep your eyes alert for this wild feline—particularly in the Flamingo area—and you may have a chance to observe it closely and at some length (even by daylight!). Such boldness and such unconcern for humans are not typical of this species, but seem to be peculiarities of the bobcats living in the park. Although bobcats are not known as water lovers, they are found in all the Everglades environments. Their apparent liking for life in the park may be due to an abundance of food and to freedom from persecution by man and his dogs. Bobcats in Everglades, if their food habits elsewhere are any guide, probably live on rodents, marsh rabbits, and birds, with possibly an occasional fawn.

In Florida Bay and the estuaries, look for the porpoise, or bottlenosed dolphin, a small member of the whale order that has endeared itself to Americans through its antics at marine aquariums and on television. Watch for it when you are on a boat trip in the park’s marine environment.

Much less commonly seen, and much less familiar, is the timid and very rare manatee. It’s probably the “most” animal of the park—the largest (sometimes over 15 feet long and weighing nearly 1 ton), the shyest, the strangest, and the homeliest; and it is probably also the most delicate, for a drop in water temperatures may kill it. The estuaries of Everglades National Park are almost the northern limits of its normal range. But manatees are often found well north of the park on both coasts in cold weather, when they swim up rivers to seek the constant-temperature water discharged by electric power plants. Despite its size, the manatee is a harmless creature, being a grazer—a sort of underwater cow that is exceptionally vulnerable to motorboats because of its gentle nature and languid movement.

Birds

From the pelican—whose mouth can hold more than its belly can—to the tiny hummingbird, the birds of Everglades National Park add beauty, amusement, excitement, and drama to the daily scene. Much more conspicuous than the park’s other animals, they can be enjoyed with no special effort. But a pair of binoculars and a field guide will make bird watching a more rewarding pastime for you.

Many of the park’s birds are large and colorful, and so tolerant of man’s presence that you can observe them closely without the aid of binoculars. The Anhinga Trail and other sites on or near the main park road provide ready access to activity by herons and egrets, cormorants, gallinules, and other species that feed upon the fish, frogs, and lesser life of the waters.

The anhinga, after whom the park’s most popular trail is named, is a favorite with visitors. It is also called water-turkey, probably because of its large size and long, white-tipped tail feathers. A third name, snake bird, derives from the anhinga’s habit of swimming almost totally submerged with its long, snaky neck above the surface. The anhinga is a skilled fisherman, seeking out its quarry by swimming underwater. It spears a fish with its beak, surfaces, tosses the fish into the air, catches it, and gulps it down head first. During this activity, the anhinga has gotten soaked to the skin, for, unlike ducks and many other water birds, it is not well supplied with oil to keep its plumage dry. So, following a plunge, the anhinga struggles to the branch of a shrub or tree, and, spreading its wings, hangs its feathers out to dry.

The snail kite, one of America’s rarest birds, flies low over the fresh-water marshes, its head pointed downward, searching for its sole food—the Pomacea snail. A sharply hooked beak enables it to remove the snail from its shell. More striking in appearance is its cousin, the swallow-tailed kite, aerial acrobat of the hawk family—a migrant that nests in the park in spring and spends the winter in South America. On long, pointed wings this handsome bird eats in the air while holding itself in one place on the wind. In the mangroves, it hunts in an unusual way: skimming over the trees, it snatches lizards and other small animals from the topmost branches. Red-shouldered hawks, often seen perching on the treetops beside the park road, feed upon snakes and other small animals. The fish-eating osprey is another conspicuous resident of the park, and its bulky nests will be seen when you take a boat trip into Florida Bay or the mangrove wilderness. The bald eagle, which, sadly, is no longer common in North America and may soon be exterminated because of pesticide pollution of its fishing waters, is still holding out in the Everglades region, where 50 or so breeding pairs seem to be reproducing successfully.

immature adult

The long-legged wading birds of the heron family are so numerous and so much alike in appearance that you will need your bird guide for sure identification. The waders are interesting to watch, because of the variety of feeding methods. Particularly amusing are the antics of the reddish egret as it hunts small animals in the shallows of Florida Bay at low tide. It is much unlike other herons in its manner of hunting: it lurches through the shallows, dashing to left and right as if drunk, in pursuit of its prey. This clownish survivor of the old plume-hunting days exists in Florida in very limited numbers.

Since about 300 species of birds have been recorded in the park, this sampling barely suggests the pleasures awaiting you if you plan to spend some time playing the Everglades bird-watching game.

Reptiles and Amphibians

Everglades’ most famous citizen—the alligator—is looked for by all visitors to the park, who may, however, be unaware that many other kinds of reptiles and a dozen species of amphibians dwell here.

The American crocodile, less common than the alligator and restricted to the Florida Bay region, is a shy and secretive animal seen by few visitors. Similar in size and appearance to the alligator, it is distinguished by a narrower snout and a lighter color. Its habitat overlaps that of the alligator, which prefers fresh or brackish water.