LOGGERHEAD KEY, April 24-29, 1993 -2 (14012373368)

Loggerhead Key is an uninhabited

tropical island An island (or isle) is an isolated piece of habitat that is surrounded by a dramatically different habitat, such as water. Very small islands such as emergent land features on atolls can be called islets, skerries, cays or keys. An island ...

within the

Dry Tortugas Dry Tortugas National Park is a national park located about west of Key West in the Gulf of Mexico. The park preserves Fort Jefferson and the seven Dry Tortugas islands, the westernmost and most isolated of the Florida Keys. The archipelago's c ...

group of islands in the

Gulf of Mexico The Gulf of Mexico ( es, Golfo de México) is an oceanic basin, ocean basin and a marginal sea of the Atlantic Ocean, largely surrounded by the North American continent. It is bounded on the northeast, north and northwest by the Gulf Coast of ...

. At approximately 49 acres (19.8 hectares) in size, it is the largest island of the Dry Tortugas. Despite being uninhabited, the island receives visitors, such as day visitors and campers. The island only has a few built structures, including the

Dry Tortugas Light The Dry Tortugas Light is a lighthouse located on Loggerhead Key, three miles west of Fort Jefferson, Florida. It was taken out of operation in 2015. It has also been called the Loggerhead Lighthouse. It has been said to be "a greater distance f ...

and a lightkeeper's house that was constructed in the 1920s. The island has drinking water derived using

desalination Desalination is a process that takes away mineral components from saline water. More generally, desalination refers to the removal of salts and minerals from a target substance, as in Soil salinity control, soil desalination, which is an issue f ...

technology and solar power. The Carnegie Marine Biological Laboratory operated on Loggerhead Key from 1904 to 1939.

Climate

Loggerhead Key has a

tropical savannah climate Tropical savanna climate or tropical wet and dry climate is a tropical climate sub-type that corresponds to the Köppen climate classification categories ''Aw'' (for a dry winter) and ''As'' (for a dry summer). The driest month has less than of p ...

( Aw). Summers are long, hot and year round. The rainy season lasts from June to October with light rainfall when compared to the rest of

Florida Florida is a state located in the Southeastern region of the United States. Florida is bordered to the west by the Gulf of Mexico, to the northwest by Alabama, to the north by Georgia, to the east by the Bahamas and Atlantic Ocean, and to ...

. Loggerhead Key is likely the driest place in Florida with the lowest amount of precipitation inches and precipitation days, being far from the Florida mainland where afternoon thunderstorms form with ease over the land.

Etymology

Loggerhead Key is named after the

loggerhead sea turtle The loggerhead sea turtle (''Caretta caretta'') is a species of oceanic turtle distributed throughout the world. It is a marine reptile, belonging to the family Cheloniidae. The average loggerhead measures around in carapace length when fully ...

, an

endangered An endangered species is a species that is very likely to become extinct in the near future, either worldwide or in a particular political jurisdiction. Endangered species may be at risk due to factors such as habitat loss, poaching and inva ...

marine reptile Marine reptiles are reptiles which have become secondarily adapted for an aquatic or semiaquatic life in a marine environment. The earliest marine reptile mesosaurus (not to be confused with mosasaurus), arose in the Permian period during the ...

and species of sea turtle with a

cosmopolitan distribution In biogeography, cosmopolitan distribution is the term for the range of a taxon that extends across all or most of the world in appropriate habitats. Such a taxon, usually a species, is said to exhibit cosmopolitanism or cosmopolitism. The ext ...

throughout the world.

Coral reefs

The Little Africa

coral reef A coral reef is an underwater ecosystem characterized by reef-building corals. Reefs are formed of colonies of coral polyps held together by calcium carbonate. Most coral reefs are built from stony corals, whose polyps cluster in groups. Co ...

is located at Loggerhead Key. The reef is home to various species of

tropical fish Tropical fish are generally those fish found in aquatic tropical environments around the world. Fishkeepers often keep tropical fish in freshwater and saltwater aquariums. The term "tropical fish" is not a taxonomic group, but rather is a ge ...

, spiny lobster and several juvenile game fish. Coral types include "various species of stony and gorgonian coral".

Flora and fauna

The flora of Loggerhead Key includes mangrove, coconut palms, geiger trees, morning glory, sea lavender and cactus. In the 1840s, the island was covered with white buttonwood trees, which were burned or cut down by island inhabitants. Bay cedar existed on the island in the early 1900s. Fauna of Loggerhead Key includes

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, ...

s, which are monitored by park rangers with the

Dry Tortugas National Park Dry Tortugas National Park is a national park located about west of Key West in the Gulf of Mexico. The park preserves Fort Jefferson and the seven Dry Tortugas islands, the westernmost and most isolated of the Florida Keys. The archipelago's c ...

to document nesting and hatching rates. The loggerhead sea turtle is also present on the island. In August 2016, a National Park marine biologist stated that 113 loggerhead turtle nests existed on the island at that time. This was the highest recorded nest rate compared previous years. The island also has

brown pelican The brown pelican (''Pelecanus occidentalis'') is a bird of the pelican family, Pelecanidae, one of three species found in the Americas and one of two that feed by diving into water. It is found on the Atlantic Coast from New Jersey to the mout ...

Former rhesus macaque habitat

In 1972, hundreds of

rhesus macaque The rhesus macaque (''Macaca mulatta''), colloquially rhesus monkey, is a species of Old World monkey. There are between six and nine recognised subspecies that are split between two groups, the Chinese-derived and the Indian-derived. Generally b ...

monkeys were brought from India to Loggerhead Key by Charles River Laboratories. This was done to provide the monkeys a place to breed, to supply the animals for medical research laboratory experiments. Around 1,322 of the monkeys existed on the island between 1987 and 1990.

Dry Tortugas Light

The

is a lighthouse located on Loggerhead Key. It began operations in 1858 and was decommissioned in 2014.

Carnegie Marine Biological Laboratory

The Carnegie Marine Biological Laboratory, also referred to as the Tortugas Laboratory, was a

marine biology Marine biology is the scientific study of the biology of marine life, organisms in the sea. Given that in biology many phyla, families and genera have some species that live in the sea and others that live on land, marine biology classifies s ...

laboratory and

research facility A research institute, research centre, research center or research organization, is an establishment founded for doing research. Research institutes may specialize in basic research or may be oriented to applied research. Although the term often i ...

constructed on the northern end of Loggerhead Key that operated from 1904 to 1939. It was constructed and operated by the

Carnegie Institution of Washington The Carnegie Institution of Washington (the organization's legal name), known also for public purposes as the Carnegie Institution for Science (CIS), is an organization in the United States established to fund and perform scientific research. Th ...

. The Carnegie Marine Biological Laboratory performed some of the first research on Western hemisphere mangroves and coral reefs, marine life at the Loggerhead Key coral reefs, other marine life, and also performed underwater color and black-and-white photography there. Due to safety concerns regarding the hurricane season, research only occurred in the late spring and summer months.

References

External links

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Loggerhead Key

National Park Service The National Park Service (NPS) is an agency of the United States federal government within the U.S. Department of the Interior that manages all national parks, most national monuments, and other natural, historical, and recreational propertie ...

. {{authority control Islands of Monroe County, Florida Islands of the Florida Keys Gulf of Mexico Islands of Florida