Everglades National Park Trivia
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49 free Everglades National Park trivia questions with answers — geography quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
This Everglades National Park trivia quiz covers the great wetland at the tip of Florida, the first national park created to protect an ecosystem rather than scenery. Questions cover the slow river flowing out of Lake Okeechobee, the sawgrass sloughs, hammocks, pinelands, cypress domes and the largest mangrove system in the Western Hemisphere, plus the wildlife: alligators and crocodiles together, the Florida panther, manatees, roseate spoonbills and the invading Burmese python. History ranges from the Calusa and Tequesta through the plume hunters, the drainage schemes of Governor Broward, Ernest Coe's campaign, Marjory Stoneman Douglas's River of Grass, Harry Truman's 1947 dedication, the Nike missile base built after the Cuban Missile Crisis, Hurricane Andrew's pythons and the Comprehensive Everglades Restoration Plan. There are also questions on Shark Valley, Flamingo, the Anhinga Trail and the 99-mile Wilderness Waterway. Questions run from easy to expert with the difficulty shown on each one. Every answer was checked against a reference page and each question carries its citation. If you enjoy this one, try our Biscayne and Dry Tortugas quizzes next.
30 of 49 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Much of the northern Everglades was drained in the 20th century to grow which crop?
Sugarcane
Sugarcane now dominates the drained farmland at the wetland's northern end, one reason the national park protects only about a fifth of the original Everglades.
Q 02The Everglades are fed by a very slow river flowing out of which body of water?
Lake Okeechobee
Lake Okeechobee once spilled over its southern rim every wet season; after deadly hurricane floods in 1926 and 1928 it was ringed with levees, so water managers now decide how much flows south.
Q 03Whose 1947 book gave the Everglades the nickname 'River of Grass'?
Marjory Stoneman Douglas
Marjory Stoneman Douglas's book recast what developers had called a worthless swamp as a slow, living river, and it shifted public opinion toward protecting the Everglades.
Q 04Everglades was the first US national park created to protect what?
A fragile ecosystem
A fragile ecosystem, not scenery, was the point: earlier parks guarded peaks, geysers and canyons, while this one was set aside for the life in a flat, shifting wetland.
Q 05Which president dedicated Everglades National Park soon after World War II?
Harry Truman
Harry Truman dedicated the park in 1947, 13 years after Congress authorised it: supporters needed that long to acquire the land and secure the funding.
Q 06Everglades holds which three international designations?
Biosphere reserve, World Heritage Site and Ramsar wetland
Biosphere reserve, World Heritage Site and Ramsar wetland are all titles the park holds, yet UNESCO has twice put it on its World Heritage in Danger list, the second time in 2010 over shrinking water flows and rising pollution.
Q 07Only Death Valley and which other national park in the lower 48 states are larger than Everglades?
Yellowstone
Yellowstone and Death Valley are the only bigger parks in the lower 48, yet about a third of Everglades is not land at all but shallow sea and estuary.
Q 08The Everglades hold the largest ecosystem of which kind in the Western Hemisphere?
Mangrove forest
Mangrove forest fringes the coast where fresh water meets salt; its tangled roots are a nursery for fish and the first line of defence against hurricane winds and storm surge.
Q 09Boat strikes are the leading human-related killer of which Everglades animal?
Manatee
The manatee feeds slowly in the shallows and may not hear the low churn of an approaching boat in time, which is why Florida restricts boat speeds where manatees gather.
Q 10South Florida is the only place in the world where which two reptiles live side by side?
Alligators and crocodiles
Alligators and crocodiles overlap only here: alligators reach the southern end of their range and keep to fresh water, while the cold-shy American crocodile, at its northern limit, stays in salty coastal water.
Q 11Eight female cougars from which state were released in 1995 to rescue the Everglades' inbred Florida panthers?
Texas
Texas cougars did the job: five of the eight had kittens, and a panther population that had sunk to 20 or 30 animals has since grown several times over.
Q 12Which hurricane is widely blamed for freeing Burmese pythons from a breeding centre near the Everglades?
Hurricane Andrew
Hurricane Andrew wrecked a python-breeding facility in 1992, but released pets were already loose in South Florida and breeding in the wild was confirmed only in 2000, so how much the storm mattered is debated.
Q 13One 2012 study reported sightings of which Everglades mammal down 99 percent where Burmese pythons had spread?
Raccoon
Q 21What was the Everglades' 'Hole in the Donut'?
A farming tract left out of the original park
A farming tract left out of the original park because its land was too valuable; once the fields were abandoned, Brazilian pepper took over, and restoring them has meant scraping the soil down to bedrock.
Q 22The Cold War Nike site HM-69 in Everglades National Park was built in response to what?
The Cuban Missile Crisis
The Cuban Missile Crisis exposed South Florida as the nation's 'Achilles heel': soldiers camped in tents outside the park in October 1962, and the permanent base they moved into was finished in 1964.
Q 23Some of the Cold War weapons kept on alert inside Everglades National Park carried what?
Raccoon sightings on the study's night road surveys fell 99.3 percent from their 1990s level, and no rabbits were seen at all; in a later experiment, pythons caused most deaths among marsh rabbits released there.
Q 14Why do Everglades python hunts catch so few of the giant snakes?
Their camouflage
Their camouflage and secretive habits hide them: despite their size, the snakes blend into the marsh so well that the park says visitors are unlikely ever to see one in the wild.
Q 15Which two Native peoples lived on Florida's southern tip when the Spanish arrived, separated by the Everglades?
Tequesta and Calusa
Tequesta and Calusa held the east and west coasts, the Calusa dominant; by the time Spain ceded Florida in 1763 only a few hundred remained, and they are reported to have left for Cuba with the Spanish.
Q 16What did Florida's coastal Native peoples pile up to build the mounds that still stand in Everglades National Park?
Discarded shells
Discarded shells piled up over some 2,000 years grew into mounds and whole islands: Chokoloskee, beside the park's Gulf coast, is a shell midden about 20 feet high.
Q 17Which landscape architect, called the Father of the Everglades, began campaigning for the park in 1928?
Ernest F. Coe
Ernest F. Coe wrote to the first Park Service director in 1928 and pushed the idea almost single-handedly; the park he won was smaller than he wanted, but its main visitor centre now bears his name.
Q 18Which Florida governor campaigned in 1904 on draining the Everglades?
Napoleon Bonaparte Broward
Napoleon Bonaparte Broward won on the promise, and the canals dredged between 1905 and 1910 turned wetland into farmland and set off the first South Florida land boom.
Q 19Why were whole rookeries of Everglades wading birds shot around 1900?
For plumes to decorate women's hats
For plumes to decorate women's hats: the trade paid so well that Guy Bradley, the warden hired to guard the rookeries, was shot dead in 1905 by a hunter whose son he had arrested.
Q 20Florida's first state park, now part of Everglades National Park, was named for which tree?
Royal palm
Royal palm: the Florida Federation of Women's Clubs campaigned for the state park at Paradise Key and ran it until it became part of the national park in 1947.
Nuclear warheads
Nuclear warheads tipped some of the park's Nike Hercules interceptors: a single blast was meant to wipe out a whole formation of bombers before it reached Miami.
Q 24The 15-mile loop road from Everglades National Park's Shark Valley Visitor Center leads to what?
An observation tower
An observation tower stands halfway round the loop; private cars are banned from the road, so visitors reach it only on foot, by bicycle or on the tram.
Q 25Which short boardwalk trail is one of Everglades National Park's most popular wildlife walks?
Anhinga Trail
Anhinga Trail is named for a bird that spears fish underwater; its feathers soak through, which helps it dive, so it is often seen perched with wings spread in the sun.
Q 26The Guy Bradley Visitor Center and marina stand at which old settlement at the Everglades' southern tip?
Flamingo
Flamingo could be reached only by boat until a rough road arrived in 1922; today it sits at the end of the main park road, 38 miles from the entrance.
Q 27What became of Everglades National Park's original lodge in 2009?
It was demolished after hurricane damage
It was demolished after hurricane damage: a 2005 storm surge left the lodge, which had opened in 1959, beyond repair, and it stood wrecked for four years before it was razed.
Q 28What did Hurricane Donna leave of the Everglades' coastal forest in 1960?
Nothing but standing dead snags
Nothing but standing dead snags remained across miles of coast, and the storm killed more than a third of the great herons nesting in the park.
Q 29Where Everglades limestone has dissolved into a hollow, cypress trees grow in which shape?
Dome
Dome: the tallest cypresses stand in the wet centre with smaller ones toward the rim, and these conifers, unusually, go bare every winter.
Q 30How do alligators help other Everglades wildlife survive the dry season?
They dig water-holding holes
They dig water-holding holes: as the marsh dries, fish and frogs crowd into these 'alligator holes' along with the animals that hunt them, and the survivors restock the prairie when the rains return.