Cayo Costa State Park
Cayo Costa State Park is a state park in the U.S. state of Florida, on Cayo Costa (formerly known as La Costa Island or Padilla Rancho), an island directly south of Boca Grande ( Gasparilla Island) and just north of North Captiva Island, approximately west of Cape Coral. The park is accessible only by charter boat (with or without captain), private boat, or ferry. History Cayo Costa was occupied by Calusa people until about 1700. Native Americans built a number of shell mounds on the island. Starting early in the 18th century, fishermen from Cuba began establishing ''ranchos'', stations for catching and processing fish for the Havana market, along the southwest coast of the Florida peninsula from Tampa Bay to the Caloosahatchee River, possibly including on Cayo Costa. The ''ranchos'' operated through the period of British rule of Florida (1763–1783), the second period of Spanish rule (1783–1821), and into the period of American rule, until they were forced out during the ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Lee County, Florida
Lee County is located in southwestern Florida, United States, on the Gulf Coast. As of the 2020 census, its population was 760,822. In 2022, the population was 822,453, making it the eighth-most populous county in the state. The county seat is Fort Myers, with a population of 86,395 as of the 2020 census, and the largest city is Cape Coral, with an estimated 2020 population of 194,016. The county comprises the Cape Coral–Fort Myers Metropolitan Statistical Area ( MSA), which, along with the Naples- Marco Island ( Collier County) MSA and the Clewiston ( Hendry County, Glades County) Micropolitan Statistical Area ( μSA), is included in the Cape Coral-Fort Myers-Naples Combined Statistical Area ( CSA). Lee County was established in 1887 from Monroe County. Fort Myers is the county seat and a center of tourism in Southwest Florida. It is about south of Tampa at the meeting point of the Gulf of Mexico and the Caloosahatchee River. [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Hurricane Charley
Hurricane Charley was the first of four separate hurricanes to impact or strike Florida during 2004, along with Frances, Ivan and Jeanne, as well as one of the strongest hurricanes ever to strike the United States. It was the third named storm, the second hurricane, and the second major hurricane of the 2004 Atlantic hurricane season. Charley lasted from August 9 to 15, and at its peak intensity it attained winds, making it a strong Category 4 hurricane on the Saffir–Simpson scale. It made landfall in Southwest Florida at maximum strength, becoming the strongest hurricane to hit the United States since Hurricane Andrew struck Florida in 1992 and tied with Hurricane Ian as the strongest hurricane to hit southwest Florida in recorded history. After moving slowly through the Caribbean, Charley crossed Cuba on Friday, August 13, as a Category 3 hurricane, causing heavy damage and four deaths. That same day, it crossed over the Dry Tortugas, just 22 hours after Trop ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Hawksbill
The hawksbill sea turtle (''Eretmochelys imbricata'') is a critically endangered sea turtle belonging to the family Cheloniidae. It is the only extant species in the genus ''Eretmochelys''. The species has a global distribution that is largely limited to tropical and subtropical marine and estuary ecosystems. The appearance of the hawksbill is similar to that of other marine turtles. In general, it has a flattened body shape, a protective carapace, and flipper-like limbs, adapted for swimming in the open ocean. ''E. imbricata'' is easily distinguished from other sea turtles by its sharp, curving beak with prominent tomium, and the saw-like appearance of its shell margins. Hawksbill shells slightly change colors, depending on water temperature. While this turtle lives part of its life in the open ocean, it spends more time in shallow lagoons and coral reefs. The World Conservation Union, primarily as a result of human fishing practices, classifies ''E. imbricata'' as critica ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Loggerhead Sea Turtle
The loggerhead sea turtle (''Caretta caretta'') is a species of sea turtle, oceanic turtle distributed throughout the world. It is a marine reptile, belonging to the Family (biology), family Cheloniidae. The average loggerhead measures around in carapace length when fully grown. The adult loggerhead sea turtle weighs approximately , with the largest specimens weighing in at more than . The skin ranges from yellow to brown in color, and the shell is typically reddish brown. No external differences in sex are seen until the turtle becomes an adult, the most obvious difference being the adult males have thicker tails and shorter plastrons (lower shells) than the females. The loggerhead sea turtle is found in the Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic, Pacific Ocean, Pacific, and Indian Oceans, as well as the Mediterranean Sea. It spends most of its life in saltwater and estuarine habitats, with females briefly coming ashore to lay eggs. The loggerhead sea turtle has a low reproductive rate; fem ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Sea Turtle
Sea turtles (superfamily Chelonioidea), sometimes called marine turtles, are reptiles of the order Testudines and of the suborder Cryptodira. The seven existing species of sea turtles are the flatback, green, hawksbill, leatherback, loggerhead, Kemp's ridley, and olive ridley. Six of the seven sea turtle species, all but the flatback, are present in U.S. waters, and are listed as endangered and/or threatened under the Endangered Species Act. They are listed as threatened with extinction globally on the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. The flatback turtle is found only in the waters of Australia, Papua New Guinea, and Indonesia. Sea turtles can be categorized as hard-shelled ( cheloniid) or leathery-shelled ( dermochelyid).Wyneken, J. 2001. The Anatomy of Sea Turtles. U.S Department of Commerce NOAA Technical Memorandum NMFS-SEFSC-470, 1-172 pp. The only dermochelyid species of sea turtle is the leatherback. Description For each of the seven species of sea turtles, ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Ogden Newspapers
Ogden Newspapers Inc. is a Wheeling, West Virginia based publisher of daily and weekly newspapers, magazines, telephone directories, and shoppers guides. It has operations in California, Florida, Hawaii, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, New Hampshire, New York, North Dakota, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Utah, Virginia and West Virginia, serving mostly small markets, such as Cape Coral, Florida, Fort Wayne, Indiana and Lawrence, Kansas. History The company was founded by H.C. Ogden in 1890, and is currently run by the family of his grandson, G. Ogden Nutting. Current CEO Robert Nutting, son of G. Ogden Nutting, is the fourth generation of the Ogden-Nutting family to run the company, and is also principal owner of the Pittsburgh Pirates. In October 1984, two Ogden newspapers ( ''The Intelligencer'' and ''The Evening Journal'') dropped the Doonesbury comic strip because they objected to Doonesbury's coverage of Ronald Reagan. On January 30, 2018, it emerged that ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Mangrove
A mangrove is a shrub or tree that grows mainly in coastal saline water, saline or brackish water. Mangroves grow in an equatorial climate, typically along coastlines and tidal rivers. They have particular adaptations to take in extra oxygen and remove salt, allowing them to tolerate conditions that kill most plants. The term is also used for tropical coastal vegetation consisting of such species. Mangroves are taxonomically diverse due to convergent evolution in several plant families. They occur worldwide in the tropics and subtropics and even some temperate coastal areas, mainly between latitudes 30° N and 30° S, with the greatest mangrove area within 5° of the equator. Mangrove plant families first appeared during the Late Cretaceous to Paleocene epochs and became widely distributed in part due to the plate tectonics, movement of tectonic plates. The oldest known fossils of Nypa fruticans, mangrove palm date to 75 million years ago. Mangroves are salt-tolerant ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Hammock (ecology)
Hammock is a term used in the southeastern United States for stands of trees, usually hardwood, that form an ecological island in a contrasting ecosystem. Hammocks grow on elevated areas, often just a few inches high, surrounded by wetlands that are too wet to support them. The term ''hammock'' is also applied to stands of hardwood trees growing on slopes between wetlands and drier uplands supporting a mixed or coniferous forest. Types of hammocks found in the United States include tropical hardwood hammocks, temperate hardwood hammocks, and maritime or coastal hammocks. Hammocks are also often classified as hydric (wet soil), mesic (moist soil) or xeric (dry soil). The types are not exclusive, but often grade into each other. Unlike many ecosystems of the coastal plain of the southeastern United States, hammocks are not tolerant of fire. Hammocks tend to occur in locations where fire is not common, or where there is some protection from fire in neighboring ecosystems. Hammocks ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Forest
A forest is an ecosystem characterized by a dense ecological community, community of trees. Hundreds of definitions of forest are used throughout the world, incorporating factors such as tree density, tree height, land use, legal standing, and ecological function. The United Nations' Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) defines a forest as, "Land spanning more than 0.5 hectares with trees higher than 5 meters and a Canopy (biology), canopy cover of more than 10 percent, or trees able to reach these thresholds ''in situ''. It does not include land that is predominantly under agricultural or urban use." Using this definition, ''Global Forest Resources Assessment (FRA), Global Forest Resources Assessment 2020'' found that forests covered , or approximately 31 percent of the world's land area in 2020. Forests are the largest Terrestrial ecosystem, terrestrial ecosystems of Earth by area, and are found around the globe. 45 percent of forest land is in the Tropical forest, trop ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Pine
A pine is any conifer tree or shrub in the genus ''Pinus'' () of the family Pinaceae. ''Pinus'' is the sole genus in the subfamily Pinoideae. ''World Flora Online'' accepts 134 species-rank taxa (119 species and 15 nothospecies) of pines as current, with additional synonyms, and ''Plants of the World Online'' 126 species-rank taxa (113 species and 13 nothospecies), making it the largest genus among the conifers. The highest species diversity of pines is found in Mexico. Pines are widely species distribution, distributed in the Northern Hemisphere; they occupy large areas of boreal forest, but are found in many habitats, including the Mediterranean Basin, and dry tropical forests in southeast Asia and Central America. Wood from pine trees is one of the most extensively used types of timber, and some pines are widely used as Christmas trees. Description Pine trees are evergreen, coniferous resinous trees (or, rarely, shrubs) growing tall, with the majority of species reachin ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Beach
A beach is a landform alongside a body of water which consists of loose particles. The particles composing a beach are typically made from Rock (geology), rock, such as sand, gravel, shingle beach, shingle, pebbles, etc., or biological sources, such as mollusc shells or coralline algae. Sediments settle in different densities and structures, depending on the local wave action and weather, creating different textures, colors and gradients or layers of material. Though some beaches form on inland freshwater locations such as lakes and rivers, most beaches are in coastal areas where wind wave, wave or Ocean current, current action deposition (geology), deposits and reworks sediments. Coastal erosion, Erosion and changing of beach geologies happens through natural processes, like wave action and Extreme weather, extreme weather events. Where wind conditions are correct, beaches can be backed by coastal dunes which offer protection and regeneration for the beach. However, th ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Pine Island Sound
Pine Island Sound is located in Lee County, Florida, lying between Pine Island and the barrier islands of Sanibel Island, Captiva Island, North Captiva Island and Cayo Costa, which separate the Sound from the Gulf of Mexico. The Sound connects to Gasparilla Sound and Charlotte Harbor to the north, and to San Carlos Bay and the Caloosahatchee River to the south. The Sound is conterminous with the Pine Island Sound Aquatic Preserve, which was established in 1970 and consists of of submerged land. Important habitats in the Sound include mangroves, seagrasses, salt marshes, oyster communities, tidal flats and sponge beds. All animals in and around Pine Island sound, including mollusks, fish, birds and mammals, are affected by periodic outbreaks of red tide (''Karenia brevis''). The Sound is relatively shallow in many locations, and boaters are cautioned to utilize up-to-date charts and tide tables. For thousands of years, the Sound was home to the Calusa The Calusa ( , Ca ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |