Fantastic Metropolis

Footnotes

^[1] Contrary to anecdotal reports from the time period, Flagler did not “keep two mayfly squid in an aquarium in his Pullman car” as he inspected progress on the railroad. The squid were almost certainly Japanese in origin and kept in the kitchen car for conversion into calamari.

^[2] The Cephalopod Studies Institute of the Americas has set out specific provisions that squid species names be capitalized. However, for consistency I have adopted the more common practice of not capitalizing the names of animals, including squid.

^[3] Given the increasing urgency of studies that examine the interdependence of human beings and the environment, human predations on the environment, and related issues, I cannot stress highly enough the need to look at “the whole picture.”

^[4] This despite the adamant veto of her mentor, Dr. Small, who wrote to her in a letter dated July 12, 1915, that “you will spend half your time cursing your decision and the other half making up disreputable theories.”

^[5] Johnson is clearly one of American Natural History’s tragic figures. Many of her friends believe that her downward spiral began with the distracting effort she put into Katherine B. Tippetts’ failed campaign to become the first woman elected to the Florida House of Representatives (1922). Later, in 1927, beset by personal problems, Johnson returned to her hummingbird studies but found herself physically incapable of the concentration required for prolonged research. She died in poverty in a flophouse outside of the town of Perry, Florida, just a year before her mentor, Dr. Small, passed away.

^[6] The original prototype of the Chapman Blind is currently on display at the Florida Museum of Natural History (Gainesville, Florida). It lies next to an ancient dugout canoe built by Muskogee Indians and bears this description on its placard: “The Chapman Blind (1934): Conceived by Dr. Gregory Chapman and Dr. Rebecca Chapman, this underwater blind inspired later marine biologists such as Jacques Cousteau and Alexander Manard.” It does not indicate how the blind inspired Cousteau and Manard.

^[7] The 1920 infestation of Florida by the Texas cattle tick resulted in Georgia building a barbed-wire fence on its border with Florida to keep out afflicted livestock. The 1929 infestation of the Mediterranean fruit fly cost orange growers millions of dollars. These events and others like them made many private entities wary of introduced species. This attitude created a narrow window of opportunity for naturalists like the Chapmans to receive private monies for research into the potential threat posed by species such as the freshwater squid.

^[8] Smythe did write about his experience and, according to his son Theodore, the resulting self-published chapbook, The Day I Found a Mayfly Squid in My Aquarium: Bait Memories, sold steadily for years from the bait shop payment counter.

^[9] “Lula brasileira de água fresca,” first identified by the great 19th century Brazilian biologist José Cabral do Gorgulho Cacarejo, lives in the southern tributaries of the Amazon River and is even more elusive than the mayfly squid.

^[10] Due to the substantial trade in coffee between the São Paulo/Rio region of Brazil and the United States.

^[11] As happened in the case of the Indian sugarcane rootstock weevil borer, with disastrous consequences.

^[12] In 1998, the St. John’s River Water Management District issued a mayfly squid alert because the mating season had produced such large quantities of juveniles that they had clogged culverts, waterways, and run-off canals.

^[13] As is too often true, the freshwater squid reference occurs in a footnote to a paper on the catfish and was only brought to my attention by a sharp-eyed cephalopod studies colleague, Paul Larsen.

^[14] Earlier claims by R. J. Fisher and Michael Fernback that the mayfly squid could “walk between water sources using its tentacles like grappling hooks on a horizontal mountain face” were, in fact, based on observations of young squid that had been dislodged from their catfish perches but had been able to sustain themselves in puddles large enough to trigger growth. Observers like Fisher and Fernback, encountering these squid, assumed they were in transit from one body of water to another.(22)

^[15] I once received a letter from a fisherman on Lake Orange who told me that mayfly squid followed his boat and fed on sandwich scraps thrown into the water.

^[16] This reaction can be especially unpleasant for snorkelers who are simply trying to get a better view of the squid.

^[17] The mating cycle is discussed within the context of the Festival of the Freshwater Squid, below.

^[18] The Siamese fighting fish also employs bubbles in its courtship. The male makes the bubbles and arranges them into a dense, floating cluster. He squeezes the female until her eggs pop out, one by one. He then fertilizes the eggs with his mouth and places one in each bubble for protection.

^[19] Bolstered by the World War II demand for additional food sources.

^[20] Three times voted into the Florida Senate on the Republican ticket.

^[21] Such brashness was typical of the Davids brothers. Both had dropped out of college in their early 20s to pursue get-rich-quick schemes that often ended in disaster. They had escaped military service by dint of their myopia and influential father. As they entered their thirties, it became apparent even to the Davids’ friends that planning appealed to the brothers more than end results.

^[22] Lynch also created tools specific to squid harvesting. “Squilts” were long wooden stilts that allowed the squiders (as the Davids called their squid mill workers) to walk through the water around the outside of the squid mill and retrieve any wild squid that had been caught between the mill’s two outer walls. To retrieve the squid, squiders used a long metal tube attached to a net “mouth” that could be opened or shut manually using a squeeze handle.

^[23] George Jenkins, Publix founder, had been a contributor to Bill Davids’ political campaigns.

^[24] That Lynch’s squid mill design was unnecessarily complex can be confirmed by even a casual glance at the sleek squid mill designs implemented by the Japanese in the 1960s.

^[25] An article in the December 12, 1951, St. Petersburg Times applauded the “energy of the Davids brothers” and the “potential positive impact on the South Florida economy,” but added the damning opinion that “the end product of this effort is not particularly palatable.”

^[26] An abbreviated version of this section first appeared in The Orlando Sentinel on May 28, 2000, under the headline “Sebring Squid Festival a Favorite of In-State Tourists.”

^[27] In fact, the town’s founder, G.E. Sebring, discovered and fell in love with the area while on a boat trip.

^[28] More than 50,000 Le Mans fans come from as far away as Europe and Japan for the two-week event.

^[29] Thus far, the Sebring Festival Committee has been unsuccessful in its efforts to encourage the state legislature to pass a resolution proclaiming the second Saturday in May “Florida Freshwater Squid Day.”

^[30] Another drama has been occurring beneath the surface throughout the mating process-trout and bass like to congregate at the edges of a squid mating group and pick off stragglers.

^[31] With the advertising legend “a favorite of maniacs” printed on the wrapper-almost certainly a bad translation by the Japanese manufacturers.

^[32] The challenge, from a naturalist’s point of view, is to ensure that such enthusiasm translates into a true spirit of conservation. From the amount of paper and plastic trash lining the lake shore the next morning, I have to conclude that this spirit may be lacking among festival participants.

^[33] As documented by University of New Hampshire biochemist Eric Schaller, publication of results pending.