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  • Florida is a wonderful place to live and attracts visitors from all over the world. However, we need to hide the welcome mat when certain scary customers come to call. Invasive, non-native species can act like criminals among Florida’s native habitats. View the line-up and you can help us make citizen arrests. Logo © TNC.
  • Hydrilla (Hydrilla verticillata), is considered the state’s most problematic aquatic weed. Growing very quickly, hydrilla displaces native vegetation and degrades water quality. Photo Credit © Robert Videcki.
  • Hydrilla clogs water intakes and reduces storm water flow. Originally from Asia, its thick mats can seriously restrict boating activity—a crime indeed in Florida. Photo Credit © Tony Pernas.
  • Feral hogs (Sus scrofa), whose population in Florida is the second largest in the country, root like rototillers and steal over $800 million per year from the agricultural industry in crop damage and livestock diseases. Photo Credit © Rebekah D. Wallace.
  • Feral hog damage sensitive habitats such as The Disney Wilderness Preserve, threatening the survival of many native plants and animals. Photo Credit © TNC.
  • Island apple snails (Pomacea insularum) are thought to have been released accidentally with aquarium supplies in the 1980’s. Now seen throughout Florida, these large, voracious eaters of rooted aquatic vegetation pose significant risks to agriculture and our delicate aquatic ecosystems. Photo Credit © Jess Van Dyke, Snail Busters, LLC, Bugwood.org.
  • Monitor lizards (Varanus niloticus), grow up to six feet and are attacking the southwest coast in a population explosion. They eat native birds and aggressively threaten areas such as Sanibel Island’s Ding Darling Sanctuary, a rare ecological gem. Photo Credit © cliff1066 via Flickr Creative Commons License.
  • Old World climbing fern (Lygodium microphyllum) is a great threat to Florida’s native plants and animals. Each plant sends thousands of spores airborne annually. Photo Credit © Brian Nelson, SFWMD.
  • Old World climbing fern (Lygodium microphyllum) fronds grow up to 125 feet, suffocating everything beneath them—even pine and cypress trees. These arsonists carry flames into treetop canopies that are normally out of fire’s range. Photo Credit © Eric Blackmore.
  • Red Lionfish (Pterois volitans) are native to the South Pacific and Indian oceans. They are now attacking native fish along the Florida coast after escaping an aquarium, are seen as far north as Rhode Island, and are all over the Caribbean. Vicious predators of juvenile reef fish, their spines are toxic to humans. Photo Credit © Jeff Yonover.
  • Burmese pythons (Python molurus bivittatus), at up to 20 feet, are one of the world’s largest snakes. Released by accident or by careless owners, they are now well-established in the Everglades and breeding prolifically. The python eats endangered, native wading birds and even mammals such as deer. Photo Credit © Kris Serbesoff-King/TNC.
  • Purple swamphens (Porphyrio porphyrio), although primarily vegetarian, prove that invasive birds can be dangerous. They are known to prey on native species including mollusks, fish, frogs, snakes, and even small birds. Native to Turkey, the Caspian Sea and Asia, several sub-species are now in the wild. Photo Credit © Lois Schneider.
  • Fire ants (Solenopsis invicat), spread rapidly and easily. Their queen will fly up to a mile above ground to mate and then settle back anywhere in sight. Fire ants attack anything that nests or has young on the ground, including nesting birds, sea turtles and people. They damage crops, and their venom is as toxic as that of a cobra. Photo Credit © Barry Rice.
  • Introduced in Alabama by South American soil from 1933 to 1945, fire ants are now in 14 southern states and California—at four to seven times their native density. Photo Credit © April Nobile, www.antweb.org.
  • The Mexican bromeliad weevil (Metamasius calliszona), is thought to have infiltrated Ft. Lauderdale in 1989 on a shipment of Mexican bromeliads. Within two months it had spread. Because of its hostile attacks on native bromeliads, two more of Florida’s finest specimens are on the endangered species list. Photo Credit © Sean McCann, UF, Bugwood.org.
Florida
Florida's 10 Most Unwanted