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Split Oak Forest
Split Oak Forest Wildlife and Environmental Area is an area of wilderness conservation lands southeast of Orlando, Florida. It straddles the border of Orange County and Osceola County and is managed by the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, which has been granted a conservation easement over the property by the two counties. The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission's management plan for Split Oak Forest is "is to restore and maintain the habitats critical to the long-term benefit of state and federally listed upland species, particularly the gopher tortoise." A parkway extension project across the southern portion of the forest is proposed to provide vehicular access to an area of new development. The wilderness area includes prairie and scrub habitat, including sandhill terrain, and is home to gopher tortoises, sandhill cranes, eastern indigo snakes, fox squirrels, butterflies, woodpeckers, kestrels, various songbirds, and some rare plant species. T ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Orlando, Florida
Orlando () is a city in the U.S. state of Florida and is the county seat of Orange County, Florida, Orange County. In Central Florida, it is the center of the Greater Orlando, Orlando metropolitan area, which had a population of 2,509,831, according to United States Census Bureau, U.S. Census Bureau figures released in July 2017, making it the List of Metropolitan Statistical Areas, 23rd-largest metropolitan area in the United States, the sixth-largest metropolitan area in the Southern United States, and the third-largest metropolitan area in Florida behind Miami and Tampa, Florida, Tampa. Orlando had a population of 307,573 in the 2020 census, making it the List of United States cities by population, 67th-largest city in the United States, the fourth-largest city in Florida, and the state's largest inland city. Orlando is one of the most-visited cities in the world primarily due to tourism, major events, and convention traffic; in 2018, the city drew more than 75 million v ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Orange County, Florida
Orange County is located in the central portion of the U.S. state of Florida. As of the 2020 census, the population was 1,429,908, making it Florida's fifth most populous county. The county seat is Orlando. Orange County is the central county of the Orlando-Kissimmee- Sanford, Florida Metropolitan Statistical Area. History The land that is Orange County was part of the first land to come up from below the Early Oligocene sea 33.9–28.4 million years ago and is known as Orange Island. Orange County's Rock Spring location is a Pleistocene fossil-bearing area and has yielded a vast variety of birds and mammals including giant sloth, mammoth, camel, and the dire wolf dating around 1.1 million years ago. 19th century to mid-20th century Immediately following the transfer of Florida to the United States in 1821, Governor Andrew Jackson created two counties: Escambia to the west of the Suwannee River and St. Johns to the east. In 1824, the area to the south of St. Johns County ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Osceola County, Florida
Osceola County (, ) is a county located in the central portion of the U.S. state of Florida. As of the 2020 census, the population was 388,656. Its county seat is Kissimmee. Osceola County is included in the Orlando–Kissimmee– Sanford, Fla. Metropolitan Statistical Area. Being 54.3% Hispanic, Osceola is one of three Hispanic-majority counties in Florida, owing to its large Puerto Rican American population. It also is the 12th-largest majority-Hispanic county in the nation. Etymology Osceola County is named for the Indian leader Osceola, whose name means "Black Drink Cry si Yaholo. History Osceola County was created in 1887. On July 21, 1821, Florida was divided into two counties, named Escambia County to the west and St. John's County to the east. In 1824, the southern part of St. John's County became Mosquito County, with Enterprise as the county seat. In 1844, Brevard County was carved out from Mosquito County. When Florida became a state in 1845, Mosquito County ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Florida Fish And Wildlife Conservation Commission
The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission (FWC) is a Florida government agency founded in 1999 and headquartered in Tallahassee. It manages and regulates the state's fish and wildlife resources, and enforces related laws. Officers are managers, researchers, and support personnel, and perform law enforcement in the course of their duties. History In 1998, an amendment to the Florida Constitution approved the establishment of the FWC with a headquarters in Tallahassee, the state capital, on July 1, 1999. It resulted from a merger between three former offices, namely the Marine Fisheries Commission, Division of Marine Resources, the former Florida Marine Patrol, and the Division of Law Enforcement of the Florida Department of Environmental Protection, and all of the employees and commissioners of the former Florida Game and Freshwater Fish Commission. The Florida Department of Environmental Protection since then serves as the environmental regulatory agency for the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sandhill
A sandhill is a type of ecological community or xeric wildfire-maintained ecosystem. It is not the same as a sand dune. It features very short fire return intervals, one to five years. Without fire, sandhills undergo ecological succession and become more oak dominated. Entisols are the typical sandhill soil, deep well-drained and nutrient poor. In Florida, sandhills receive cm of rainfall per year, just like the more hydric ecosystems surrounding them. Sandhills are xeric because they have poor water holding capacity. Dominant vegetation includes longleaf pine (''Pinus palustris''), American turkey oak (''Quercus laevis''), and wiregrass (''Aristida stricta''). A number of rare animals are typical of this habitat including the gopher tortoise (''Gopherus polyphemus''), red-cockaded woodpecker (''Picoides borealis''), Sherman's fox squirrel ('' Sciurus niger shermani''), and striped newt (''Notophthalmus perstriatus''). Invasive species that are a problem on sandhills include Co ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Gopher Tortoise
The gopher tortoise (''Gopherus polyphemus'') is a species of tortoise in the family Testudinidae. The species is native to the southeastern United States. The gopher tortoise is seen as a keystone species because it digs burrows that provide shelter for at least 360 other animal species. ''G. polyphemus'' is threatened by predation and habitat destruction. The gopher tortoise is a representative of the genus '' Gopherus'', which contains the only tortoises native to North America. The gopher tortoise is the state reptile of Georgia and the state tortoise of Florida. Etymology The specific name, ''polyphemus'', refers to the cave-dwelling giant, Polyphemus, of Greek mythology. Gopher tortoises are so named because of some species' habit of digging large, deep burrows like the gopher. Description The gopher tortoise is a fairly large terrestrial reptile which possesses forefeet well adapted for burrowing, and elephantine hind feet. These features are common to most tortoise ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sandhill Crane
The sandhill crane (''Antigone canadensis'') is a species of large crane of North America and extreme northeastern Siberia. The common name of this bird refers to habitat like that at the Platte River, on the edge of Nebraska's Sandhills on the American Great Plains. Sandhill Cranes are known to hangout at the edges of bodies of water especially in the Central Florida region. This is the most important stopover area for the nominotypical subspecies, the lesser sandhill crane (''A. c. canadensis''), with up to 450,000 of these birds migrating through annually. Taxonomy In 1750, English naturalist George Edwards included an illustration and a description of the sandhill crane in the third volume of his ''A Natural History of Uncommon Birds''. He used the English name "The Brown and Ash-colour'd Crane". Edwards based his hand-coloured etching on a preserved specimen that had been brought to London from the Hudson Bay area of Canada by James Isham. When in 1758 the Swedish natu ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Eastern Indigo Snake
The eastern indigo snake (''Drymarchon couperi'') is a species of large, non-venomous snake in the family Colubridae. Native to the southeastern region of the United States, it is the longest native snake species in North America. Taxonomy and etymology Taxonomy The eastern indigo snake was first described by John Edwards Holbrook in 1842. For many years the genus ''Drymarchon'' was considered monotypic with one species, ''Drymarchon corais'', with 12 subspecies, until the early 1990s when ''Drymarchon corais couperi'' was elevated to full species status according to the Society for the Study of Amphibians and Reptiles, in their official names list. Etymology The generic name, ''Drymarchon'', roughly translates to "lord of the forest". It is composed of the Greek words ''drymos'' (Δρυμός), meaning "forest", and ''archon'' (ἄρχων), meaning "lord" or "ruler". The specific name is a latinization of the surname of American planter James Hamilton Couper (1794-1866). ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Fox Squirrel
The fox squirrel (''Sciurus niger''), also known as the eastern fox squirrel or Bryant's fox squirrel, is the largest species of tree squirrel native to North America. Despite the differences in size and coloration, it is sometimes mistaken for American red squirrels or eastern gray squirrel The eastern gray squirrel (''Sciurus carolinensis''), also known, particularly outside of North America, as simply the grey squirrel, is a tree squirrel in the genus ''Sciurus''. It is native to eastern North America, where it is the most prodi ...s in areas where the species co-exist. Description The squirrel's total length measures , with a body length of and a similar tail length. They range in weight from . There is no sexual dimorphism in size or appearance. Individuals tend to be smaller in the west. There are three distinct geographical phases in coloration: In most areas the animal's upper body is brown-grey to brown-yellow with a typically brownish-orange underside, while in e ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Kestrel
The term kestrel (from french: crécerelle, derivative from , i.e. ratchet) is the common name given to several species of predatory birds from the falcon genus ''Falco''. Kestrels are most easily distinguished by their typical hunting behaviour which is to hover at a height of around over open country and swoop down on ground prey, usually small mammals, lizards or large insects, while other falcons are more adapted for active hunting during flight. Kestrels are notable for usually having mostly brown in their plumage. Description Most species termed kestrels appear to form a distinct clade among the falcons, as suggested by comparison of mtDNA cytochrome ''b'' sequence data and morphology. This seems to have diverged from other ''Falco'' around the Miocene–Pliocene boundary (Messinian to Zanclean, or about 7–3.5 mya). The most basal "true" kestrels are three species from Africa and its surroundings which lack a malar stripe, and in one case have—like other falcons ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Orlando Sentinel
The ''Orlando Sentinel'' is the primary newspaper of Orlando, Florida, and the Central Florida region. It was founded in 1876 and is currently owned by Tribune Publishing Company. The ''Orlando Sentinel'' is owned by parent company, '' Tribune Publishing''. This company was acquired by Alden Global Capital, which operates its media properties through Digital First Media, in May 2021. The newspaper's website utilizes geo-blocking, thus making it unaccessible from European countries. History The ''Sentinel''s predecessors date to 1876, when the ''Orange County Reporter'' was first published. The ''Reporter'' became a daily newspaper in 1905, and merged with the ''Orlando Evening Star'' in 1906. Another Orlando paper, the ''South Florida Sentinel'', started publishing as a morning daily in 1913. Then known as the ''Morning Sentinel'', it bought the ''Reporter-Star'' in 1931, when Martin Andersen came to Orlando to manage both papers. Andersen eventually bought both papers outrigh ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Osceola Parkway
Osceola Parkway, signed as County Road 522 (CR 522) since around 2003 (and originally planned as State Road 424), is a , partially tolled arterial road extending east–west across the northern boundary of Osceola County, Florida, roughly paralleling the border with Orange County. It connects Walt Disney World with Interstate 4 and Florida's Turnpike before terminating at Simpson Road (formerly Boggy Creek Road) near Buenaventura Lakes, and is maintained by Osceola County. Only the section between the Southern Connector and a toll plaza east of Shingle Creek is tolled; the rest includes mainly at-grade intersections. A portion of the Osceola Parkway was once called Dart Boulevard. Route description The road starts at an intersection with an entrance road to the Disney's Animal Kingdom Lodge in Lake Buena Vista. For its westernmost , it has many characteristics of an at-grade boulevard; however, east of the entrance to Disney's Animal Kingdom, it becomes a grade-separate ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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