A tropical cactus once found in the Florida Keys is no longer found in the United States except in a few protected collections, a field biologist told Fox News Digital this week.
Key Largo’s tree cacti became extinct due in part to rising sea levels in the region, said Jennifer Posley, who published a paper about their extinction in the Journal of the Texas Botanical Institute earlier this month.
Posley is regional conservation director at Fairchild Tropical Botanical Garden in Coral Gables, Florida, near Miami, and is part of a group of scientists and researchers who have collaborated to study the species since it was first discovered in 1992 at John Pennekamp Coral Reef State Park.
Florida treasure hunters astonished at 300-year-old shipwreck discovery: ‘Unexpected find’
“It’s kind of funny, in a way,” Posley told Fox News Digital, because the Key Largo cacti are two stories tall and several cars wide.
“But it was in a very isolated area, in tall mangroves,” she says, “so no one in their right mind would ever go past it.”
Field biologists say the Key Largo cactus tree, which has been seen here for years since it was discovered in 1992, no longer exists in the United States. (Susan Colterman, Trudy Wilson/Florida Parks Service, Susan Colterman)
No one knows how long the Key Largo arboreal cacti have been there, but Posley said they’ve probably been there for decades, or “maybe 100 years.”
The Florida Keys are home to at least eight species of cacti, and rising sea levels are known to pose a threat to many of the rare plants that live there, according to the paper.
A Florida-native snail species was discovered near Jimmy Buffet’s Margarita Villa. See the margarita-colored creature
In 2007, when Fairchild Tropical Botanical Garden was helping Florida state parks monitor cactus populations, the Key Largo tree cactus, known by its scientific name Pilothocereus myrspaugii, “was growing well,” Posley said, “and it grew well for a few years.”
It was clear that “something was eating the cactus.”
By 2012, “it was starting to go downhill a little bit, but not enough to worry us,” Posley said.
But by 2015, it was clear to Posley and his colleagues that “something was eating the cacti.”
Field biologist Jennifer Posley (pictured) said the Key Largo tree cactus was two stories tall and several cars wide. (Susan Colterman)
“My eyes popped out. [there were] “Extensive damage and injury has resulted in the death of many plants,” she said.
Posley said the cacti were supposed to bounce back, but several major hurricanes and “king tides” have caused the population to continue to decline.
By 2019, “the saltwater was actually washing over the base of the plants, which was something we’d never seen before,” Posley said.
Posley said it became clear in July 2023 that Key Largo’s tree cacti would not survive.
“Other cacti in the region are threatened with a similar fate.”
“Their decline and subsequent extinction coincides with sea-level rise in the region,” the paper said.
Dengue fever case confirmed in Florida Keys; spread by mosquito bites
“Other cacti in the region, as well as rare plants in the Florida Keys, are all threatened with a similar fate.”
But Posley made it clear that it’s unfair to blame sea level rise alone.
A Florida park ranger stands next to a damaged Key Largo tree cactus that is up to two stories tall, pictured at right. (James Lange/Fairchild Tropical Botanic Gardens, Susan Colterman)
“We really think the reason this cactus disappeared is the result of a confluence of events, including sea level rise,” she said.
“Herbivores certainly play a role. Hurricanes passing through definitely play a role.”
Click here to sign up for our lifestyle newsletter
Key Largo’s arboreal cacti “will not be the first species lost to complications from sea level rise,” Posley said.
She said there are “quite a few” plants in the Keys that are “severely endangered.”
Click here to get the FOX News app
“This was a really amazing species that we could claim as part of our botanical heritage here in South Florida,” she says, “and then it just disappeared.”
For more lifestyle stories, visit www.foxnews.com/lifestyle
Although the Key Largo tree cactus has disappeared from the U.S. ecosystem, it is not technically extinct.
Posley noted that the species also lives along the coasts of Cuba and the Bahamas, as well as in conservation collections such as the Fairchild Tropical Botanic Garden.
