Big Pine Key and the Florida Pine Rocklands

No trip to the Keys would be complete for Leon and me without a visit to the pine rockland ecosystem of Big Pine and No Name Keys. The ecosystem sits on a thin layer of soil over a fossilized coral reef (known as Miami oolith) and lenses of fresh water near the surface. We observed a very similar ecosystem several days earlier at Long Pine Key in the Everglades.

A series of nature trails crisscrosses the island. I've always been impressed with the interpretation along the trails. One sign explains how to distinguish the three species of palm that grow in the park, and we spend much of the walk identifying palm trees.

Palmetto (Serenoa repens)

Palmettos have a recumbent growth habit. The remaining two species grow upright.

Silver Palm (Coccothrinax argentata)

The fronds of silver palms terminate in very thin "fingers."

Thatch Palm (Thrinax morissii)

Thatch palms have less divided fronds.

No Name Key

There are few insects here, though I see a couple of skippers and a few dragonflies. After a bit of a wander, we make our way over to No Name Key for a hike on a fire road through the National Key Deer Refuge. The vegetation is a fairly scrubby hardwood hammock, grading down to buttonwood and mangrove growing in mud flats at the end of the trail.


The mud flats at the end of the trail look like great tiger beetle habitat. Indeed, I encountered S-banded Tiger Beetles (Cicindela trifasciata) in the mud. No collecting- this is a National Wildlife Refuge, after all. Unfortunately this species is very wary, so all of my photos are just blurs. We did photograph some other insects.

Unidentified Skippper. Aak, I don't have a guide with me. ID Later.


Great Southern White (Ascia monuste)
Check out the blue antennae.

We did get to see two of the endangered Key Deer while leaving. We did not get good shots of the one on the trail, but Leon got a nice photo of a buck on the road out of town. They are about the size of a German shepherd, but with much longer legs.

Key Deer
Photo: Leon

Speaking of endangered species, after our hikes on Big Pine Key, we headed north to Bahia Honda Key to see if we could get a look at the endangered Miami Blue butterfly. We saw lots of the host plant (Nickerbean), but looked a long time without seeing blue butterflies.

Miami Blue habitat with nickerbean on Bahia Honda Key

Finally, we saw a single blue butterfly. It never landed close to the trail. I took a distant photo. Through the magic of zoom lens combined with enlargement and cropping in photoshop, I got a good enough picture to identify it at the Miami Blue. It was a fine day in the Keys!

Miami Blue (Hemiargus thomasii)