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The island of Seahorse Key, Florida has been home to an interesting mix of inhabitants over the years, from Seminole prisoners to Civil War soldiers. But in recent times, it has gone to the birds…and the snakes and the horseshoe crabs. Located off the shore of Cedar Key, about a 20-minute boat ride from the town’s popular oceanfront boardwalk, the serene island paradise is uninhabited by humans, with the exception of researchers and educators utilizing the University of Florida Seahorse Key Marine Laboratory.

“It is a magical place,” says Zoology Professor Jane Brockmann, who has been studying the island’s horseshoe crab populations since 1989. “One of the things that makes the lab useful is, since the island is a wildlife refuge, we can study the behavior of a species and know that it has not been disturbed.”

Part of the Cedar Keys National Wildlife Refuge, Seahorse Key serves as a safe haven for more than 100 different species of birds over the course of a year. Brown and white pelicans, white ibis, cormorants, and several species of egrets and herons flock to the island to nest and raise their young. A long-term agreement between UF and the US Fish and Wildlife Service allows the university to conduct programs associated with its 50-year-old marine lab on the island. In exchange, UF helps preserve the island and maintain its historic lighthouse, which celebrated its 150th anniversary in August.

“ People can come out here and study raw nature—from the marine sciences to coastal and estuarine ecology,” says Harvey Lillywhite, a zoology professor and director of the Seahorse Key Marine Laboratory since 1998. He recalls a statement made by the late UF zoology professor and renowned sea turtle biologist Archie Carr, “The greatest thing about the marine laboratory is the island itself.”

With the approval of Lillywhite and the US Fish and Wildlife Service, researchers from across campus and other institutions worldwide are allowed to study wildlife on the key and its surrounding waters. In addition to the island’s bird population, scientists have access to hundreds of species, including terrestrial vertebrates, such as snakes, numerous fishes and marine invertebrates, and terrestrial and marine plants. And while seahorses do inhabit the area, the island takes its name from its shape.

There are seven new research projects taking place on the island. A doctoral student from the Georgia Institute of Technology is investigating the mating system of dusky pipefish, while a student from Auburn University is studying the geographic distribution of segmented worms. A team from the Smithsonian Marine Station in Fort Pierce, Florida is studying the ecology and evolution of larval sponges and bryozoans. Students and professors from UF are studying a diversity of subjects ranging from the properties of submerged soils to plant surveys within the Cedar Keys.

Lillywhite is researching the island’s unique snake population—made up mostly of cottonmouths—and its relationship with the nesting birds. The snakes tend to reside under the bird rookeries and feed on fish dropped or regurgitated by the nesting birds. Lillywhite and his research assistants believe they have found the answer to an interesting phenomenon that has left others scratching their heads—the fact that the nesting birds bypass most of the 800 acres of refuge space available to them in the Cedar Keys island chain and choose to nest at Seahorse Key. “We believe the dense snake population is a deterrent to potential nest predators including raccoons, non-native rats and arboreal snakes,” Lillywhite says. “Raccoons reside on other adjacent islands where there are far fewer snakes, and the birds choose not to nest there. We also find an inverse relationship between the number of snakes and the number of introduced rats on the island. Where snakes are most numerous—at the bird rookeries—there are very few rats.”

Another interesting species on the island is the horseshoe crab. The prehistoric looking creature is helmet-shaped with a domed body and a long tail, which it uses to right itself when turned over. More closely related to scorpions or spiders than crabs, the 10-legged creature looks the same as its ancestors did over 100 million years ago, during the age of dinosaurs. Hundreds cover the beach during the high tide of a full moon to mate and deposit eggs. Brockmann is studying the crab’s reproductive and mating behavior, in particular why the crabs mate in groups and share parenthood.

“I started going out to Seahorse Key when I first came to UF in 1979, at first just taking classes out there,” Brockmann says. “Then around 1989–1990, I became really interested in the horseshoe crab. It is a very peculiar creature. For example, its eggs are laid in the sand and fertilized outside the body in the sand, unlike any other arthropod. There is just nothing else like it on earth, nothing that is still around anyway.”

Brockmann primarily works on the island during the spring, which is the height of the mating season. She has to do most of her work at night, when the crabs come ashore, so she stays overnight in the dorm space available inside the lighthouse. For a modest fee, up to 26 people can sleep in bunk-style accommodations within the lighthouse, which also contains two small bathrooms and a kitchen on each end of the house equipped with refrigerators, a gas stove, ice machine and microwave ovens. Filtered drinking water is pumped from a freshwater lens beneath the island, and electricity is provided by a generator. Other facilities include a small teaching and research lab, an outdoor pavilion with tables and holding tanks, storage sheds, and boats including a research vessel, the R/V Discovery.

According to the Cedar Key Historical Society, the Seahorse Key Lighthouse was built in 1854 and is based on a unique design by Lieutenant George Meade, who later became a famed American Civil War general, leading the Union Army in the Battle of Gettysburg. The island of Seahorse Key had already been established as an American military reservation in 1841 and was used to detain Seminole prisoners after the Second Florida/Seminole War. During the Civil War northern troops captured the island and used it as a cantonment where confederate soldiers were imprisoned. The remains of a battery can still be found on the island, deep in a small wood, next to a graveyard where four Navy officers are buried, as well as a lighthouse keeper and his wife.

The lighthouse was constructed on the highest Pleistocene dune in the Gulf and showed the way for the ships sailing into the active Cedar Key port in the 1880s. A regular line of steam ships ran from Cedar Key to Tampa and Key West and a considerable amount of business was done with New Orleans and Havana. The Seahorse Key Lighthouse lit the way for all this traffic. By 1915, however, the lighthouse was deactivated, and its fourth order Fresnel lens was permanently darkened. Climbing through the beacon and stepping onto its observation deck reveals a spectacular 360-degree view of the island and the sea beyond, including the Cedar Key coastline.

During the 2003–2004 academic year, 19 different courses at UF used the facilities of the Seahorse Key Marine Laboratory, representing disciplines in zoology, botany, environmental and coastal engineering, veterinary medicine, environmental chemistry, mathematics and entomology. Though the lab is administered by the Department of Zoology, any legitimate educator or researcher can use the site and its facilities. Numerous outreach and environmental education agencies and organizations also bring groups to Seahorse Key, including the Audubon Society, Florida Museum of National History, several area schools and training institutes for teachers. Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts groups also occasionally tour the island.

“The influence on young people is very important,” says Lillywhite. “So many students, when they are young, go to a field station for the first time and they always remember it. The experience helps them to make career decisions, encourages stewardship, and is something they carry with them for the rest of their lives.”--Buffy Lockette