National Parks: Florida Everglades

With MOSI's IMAX Dome theater currently showing the terrific new film National Parks Adventure, we've been thinking about the wonderful national parks available to us here in Florida. The most famous of these is no doubt the Florida Everglades, and MOSI Outside staff consider it one of their favorite places to see Florida's best wildlife in action. Here are few things we love about this incredible place.

What's In a Name?
The Seminoles call it Pa-hay-okee, meaning "grassy water." Marjorie Stoneman Douglass called it the River of Grass. An early British surveyor called it the River Glades, which soon morphed into Everglades. These names all capture the essential nature of this unique ecosystem - an enormous shallow river of water, always on the move, sixty miles wide and a hundred miles long. The headwaters begin in Orlando with the waters of the Kissimmee River, which feeds into Lake Okeechobee and overflows throughout south Florida to meet the Gulf of Mexico at Florida Bay.

Despite years of dams, dikes, canals, drainage, and other attempts by man to control it, the Everglades lives on, a changing landscape with wet and dry seasons, covered in sawgrass marsh, cypress swamps, mangrove forests, and hardwood hammocks. Standing at sea level and looking across, it seems to be large and empty plain, but a closer look reveals a wealth of plants and animals standing with their feet in the water, their bodies hidden among the grasses and their heads stretched toward the endless Florida sky.

Alligators AND Crocodiles
Hundreds of species of birds, reptiles, and mammals call the Everglades home. This is the only place in the world where alligators and crocodiles can be found sharing the same ecosystem. American Alligators (Alligator mississippiensis) are common in the southeast U.S. and throughout Florida, but here in the Everglades, their territory overlaps with that of the American Crocodile (Crocodylus acutus), and they are sometimes mistaken for one another. Crocodiles have a slimmer, more pointed snout, and are usually more brown in color, while alligators have a rounded snout and are darker in color.

American Alligator, Shark Valley 

American Crocodile, Flamingo

Epiphytes Galore
We're big fans of epiphytes, also known as "air plants," here at MOSI Outside. The humid tropics and sub-tropics are the ideal growing zone for epiphytes, which don't need to be rooted in soil to survive; they obtain all the water and nutrients they need from the air around them. The Florida Everglades are home to many of Florida's 16 species of native epiphytes, including the Broad Needleleaf (Tillandsia simulata), a species endemic to Florida. The trees are filled with their spiky foliage, which themselves gather water and serve as habitat for small frogs, lizards, and hundreds of tiny insects. The sight of these unusual plants, along with the dripping tendrils of Spanish Moss (another epiphyte) filling the trees, creates an iconic picture of the Florida Everglades ecosystem and landscape.

Abundant Bird Life
The Florida Everglades are a birder's paradise. More than 360 species of birds can be found on the official checklist, though some of these are seasonal or migratory, including sixteen species of wading birds. Visitors can expect to easily spot Great Egrets, Great Blue Herons, Little Blue Herons, Tricolored Herons, Snowy Egrets, Cattle Egrets, White Ibis, Glossy Ibis, Wood Storks, and Roseate Spoonbills, most likely without even leaving their cars. Deeper explorations will uncover night herons, bitterns, rails, and the gorgeous Purple Gallinule. The skies are ranged by ospreys, snail kites, hawks, and vultures. Brown Pelicans abound, and are joined in the winter by flocks of enormous American White Pelicans. Songbirds haunt the trees, and shorebirds by the millions speckle the beaches.

Purple Gallinule adult and juvenile

Visiting the Florida Everglades
Everglades National Park is very large (1.5 million acres), with multiple visitor centers, locations, and activities. Anyone planning a trip should spend some time on the National Park Service's website first. We recommend the following high points that wildlife watchers shouldn't miss:

• Shark Valley Visitor Center and Tram Tour: A wonderful introduction to the park, and a great low-impact way to see and learn about the wildlife that abounds here. Tip: If you're able, rent a bike instead and take your time checking things out at your own pace.
• Anhinga Trail: Not far from the main visitor center in Homestead, the Anhinga Trail is a series of boardwalks and paths that lead you through Taylor Slough. Easily accessible for everyone, this area abounds in wildlife. Tip: Visit at dawn or dusk for the best sightings and activity.
• Flamingo: Take the long road out to Flamingo on Florida Bay. Along the way, you'll pass through multiple ecosystems with the opportunity to get out and explore. Tip: When you reach Flamingo, take a boat or canoe trip back through the mangroves to spot crocodiles and other wildlife.