Representative Birds
This bird from our discussion builds its nest in long tunnels and allows other birds to share it.
What is the Belted Kingfisher?
This insect we discussed is predatory and injects its prey with digestive enzymes.
What is the Giant Water Bug?
What is the largest terrestrial animal in North America?
What is the American Bison?
Spanish settlers introduced these two major agricultural products to Florida during the 16th century. Paynes Prairie Indians made extensive use of these over the next few centuries.
What is cattle and citrus?
This term is used to describe a gradual change in a plant community following a disturbance.
What is succession?
This is the term for a group of Pileated Woodpeckers.
What is a crown?
The Longhead Toothpick Grasshopper calls for a mate by...
What is by rubbing its hind leg against its wing?
Florida Black Bears can run at speeds of...
What is up to 30 miles per hour?
In the 1920s, in an effort to increase cattle and crop production in the basin, this artificial drainage way was created to channel water from Paynes Prairie further south into nearby Orange Lake.
What is Camp's Canal?
This insect attacks live pines and bores holes between the crevasses of bark plates.
What is the Southern Pine Beetle? The most destructive insect pest of pine forests in the southern United States.
As discussed, one way that a Turkey Vulture cools itself down is by...
What is by defecating on its own legs?
So many of these species look identical that biologists often have to use their genitalia to differentiate between them.
What are moths?
Coyote are capable of running at speeds of...
What is up to 50 miles per hour?
This is the largest marsh lake in the park. This marsh lake depends upon variation in rainfall, flow of streams into the basin, and the capacity of Alachua Sink to drain the basin.
What is Alachua Lake?
This term describes an area higher in elevation than its wetter surroundings and is characterized by hardwood forests of broadleaf evergreens.
What is a hammock?
Something unique about the way in which a Swallow-tailed Kite eats and drinks is that it...
What is it does both while flying?
The plant species host for this bug was originally thistles, but its menu has since expanded to include citrus plants.
What is the Eastern Leaf-footed Bug?
Lynx rufus is the scientific name for this mammal.
What is the Bobcat?
Paynes Prairie Preserve is considered a _______ watershed. This means that water that enters the basin does not exit via natural surface channels but through sinkholes to the aquifer or by evapotranspiration.
What is a closed watershed?
This term describes the dividing of a landscape into smaller and more isolated pieces and a decrease in some or all types of natural habitats in the landscape as a result.
What is fragmentation?
This term used by ornithologists describes the killing of the other eggs in the nest by the first-born.
What is obligate siblicide?
The nymph form of this species overwinters in North Florida while the adults go further south.
What is the Eastern Leaf-footed Bug?
Black bears are not true hibernators in the winters. Instead, North Florida Black Bears experience a period of reduced activity that is often called...
What is denning, ursid hibernation, torpor or carnivore lethargy?
This term is used to describe an overland flow or downslope movement of water taking the form of a thin, continuous film over ground surfaces. Dikes and canals constructed in Paynes Prairie from the 1920s-1970 have disrupted this process as well as the natural hydrology of the basin.
What is sheet flow?
This term describes a sown pasture that includes introduced pasture species, usually grasses in combination with legumes. These are generally more productive than the native pastures, have higher protein and are typically more digestible.
What is improved pasture?