BULLETIN FLORIDA MUSEUM NATURAL HISTORY VOL. 38 PT. II


United States, east of the Mississippi. Much of the species richness in the
Hamilton and Whittaker volume derives from the inclusion of the prairie forms
from Wisconsin and Illinois, and boreal forms from New England. Given the
preceding constraints, Virginia, Maryland, and the Carolinas include 75 species.
Fifty species have been recorded in recent times within the political boundaries of
Florida. Of the total 50, five are to be found exclusively in the Florida Panhandle
and thus are part of the remnant Appalachian fauna more typical of eastern
Alabama or western Georgia.
 Mammal distributions in peninsular Florida are very complex. The area
under consideration extends from the temperate zone into the subtropics. Northern
forms may be reaching the limits of their distribution and often have fragmented
ranges not necessarily induced by human disturbance. According to Hamilton and
Whitaker (1979), 39 species could occur on the Ordway Preserve. Nine are bats,
and the group that has received the least attention by investigators on the Ordway
to date. As of May 1992, we have recorded firm evidence of 30 species that occur
on the Ordway (exclusive of European introductions) (Table 1). We believe it
possible that two more native species will be identified on the preserve. Two
species, the black bear Ursus americanus and the cougar Puma (= Felis) concolor,
not presently found on the preserve, were recorded in the last 30 to 50 years.
These wide-ranging forms are on the decline in peninsular Florida and will never
again be a part of the preserve's permanent mammalian fauna. To date, workers
on the preserve have studied in some detail the natural history of 12 species and in
part 4 more species (Table 1).
 Much valuable information concerning the mammals of Florida remains in
unpublished theses and dissertations submitted to the Graduate School of the
University of Florida. Because this introduction has been written with the general
reader in mind, I shall attempt to outline some useful references that may be
obtained from either a library or the libraries within the Department of Zoology
and the Department of Wildlife and Range Sciences at the University of Florida
(see Bibliography). A. M. Laessle (1942) first described the plant communities of
the Welaka area. This landmark dissertation is useful to students of the Ordway
Preserve because Welaka lies only some 20 miles to the south and the habitats are
comparable. In 1942, Joseph Moore submitted a survey of the mammals found on
the University of Florida Conservation Reserve in Putnam County. This work
includes useful notes on their natural history. In 1947, Robert D. Ivey presented a
thesis on the mammals, exclusive of bats, from Palm Valley, Florida. This locality
lies immediately to the east of the Ordway Preserve along the Atlantic Coast.
Although the habitat complex in this region differs from the Ordway Preserve, the
contribution contains much interesting material on the natural history of mammals