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Blue-footed booby

The blue-footed booby (Sula nebouxii) is a marine bird native to subtropical and tropical regions of the eastern Pacific Ocean. It is one of six species of the genus Sula – known as boobies. It is easily recognizable by its distinctive bright blue feet, which is a sexually selected trait and a product of their diet. Males display their feet in an elaborate mating ritual by lifting them up and down while strutting before the female. The female is slightly larger than the male and can measure up to 90 cm long with a wingspan up to 1.5 m.

The natural breeding habitats of the blue-footed booby are the tropical and subtropical islands of the Pacific Ocean. It can be found from the Gulf of California south along the western coasts of Central and South America to Peru. About half of all breeding pairs nest on the Galápagos Islands. Its diet mainly consists of fish, which it obtains by diving and sometimes swimming under water in search of its prey. It sometimes hunts alone, but usually hunts in groups.

The blue-footed booby usually lays one to three eggs at a time. The species practices asynchronous hatching, in contrast to many other species whereby incubation begins when the last egg is laid and all chicks hatch together. This results in a growth inequality and size disparity between siblings, leading to facultative siblicide in times of food scarcity. This makes the blue-footed booby an important model for studying parent–offspring conflict and sibling rivalry.

Taxonomy
The blue-footed booby was described by the French naturalist Alphonse Milne-Edwards in 1882 under the current binomial name Sula nebouxii. The specific epithet was chosen to honor the surgeon, naturalist, and explorer Adolphe-Simon Neboux (1806–1844). There are two recognized subspecies: Its closest relative is the Peruvian booby. The two species likely split from each other recently due to their shared ecological and biological characteristics. A 2011 study of multiple genes calculated the two species diverged between 1.1 and 0.8 million years ago.

The name booby comes from the Spanish word bobo ("stupid", "foolish", or "clown") because the blue-footed booby is, like other seabirds, clumsy on land. They are also regarded as foolish for their apparent fearlessness of humans.

Description
The blue-footed booby is on average 81 cm long and weighs 1.5 kg, with the female being slightly larger than the male. Its wings are long, pointed, and brown in color. The neck and head of the blue-footed booby are light brown with white streaks, while the belly and underside exhibit pure white plumage. Its eyes are placed on either side of its bill and oriented towards the front, enabling excellent binocular vision. Its eyes are a distinctive yellow, with the male having more yellow in its irises than the female. Blue-footed booby chicks have black beaks and feet and are clad in a layer of soft white down. The subspecies S. n. excisa that breeds on the Galápagos Islands is larger than the nominate subspecies and has lighter plumage especially around the neck and head.

The Peruvian booby is similar in appearance, but has grey feet, whiter head and neck, and white spots on its wing coverts. The ranges of the two species overlap in the waters of northern Peru and southern Ecuador.

Since the blue-footed booby preys on fish by diving headlong into the water, its nostrils are permanently closed, and it has to breathe through the corners of its mouth. Its most notable characteristic is its blue-colored feet, which can range in color from a pale turquoise to a deep aquamarine. Males and younger birds have lighter feet than females. Its blue feet play a key role in courtship rituals and breeding, with the male visually displaying his feet to attract mates during the breeding season.

Distribution and habitat
The blue-footed booby is distributed among the continental coasts of the eastern Pacific Ocean from California to the Galápagos Islands south into Peru. It is strictly a marine bird. Its only need for land is to breed and rear young, which it does along the rocky coasts of the eastern Pacific.

A booby may use and defend two or three nesting sites, which consist of bare black lava in small divots in the ground, until they develop a preference for one a few weeks before the eggs are laid. These nests are created as parts of large colonies. While nesting, the female turns to face the sun throughout the day, so the nest is surrounded by excrement.

Natal dispersal
Females start breeding when they are 1 to 6 years old, while males start breeding when they are 2 to 6 years old. Very limited natal dispersal occurs, meaning that young pairs do not move far from their original natal nests for their own first reproduction, leading to the congregation of hundreds of boobies in dense colonies. The benefit of limited dispersal is that by staying close to their parents' nesting sites, the boobies are more likely to have a high-quality nest. Since their parents had successfully raised chicks to reproductive age, their nest site must have been effective, either by providing cover from predation and parasitism, or by its suitability for taking off and landing. Bigamy has been observed in the species, and cases are known where two females and one male all share a single nest.

Foot pigmentation
The blue color of the blue-footed booby's webbed feet comes from structures of aligned collagens in the skin modified by carotenoid pigments obtained from its diet of fresh fish. The collagens are arranged in a manner that makes the skin appear blue. The underlying color is a "flat, purplish blue". That color is modified by carotenoids to aquamarine in healthy birds. Carotenoids also act as antioxidants and stimulants for the blue-footed booby's immune function, suggesting that carotenoid pigmentation is an indicator of an individual's immunological state. Blue feet also indicate the current health condition of a booby. Boobies that were experimentally food-deprived for 48 hours experienced a decrease in foot brightness due to a reduction in the amount of lipids and lipoproteins that are used to absorb and transport carotenoids. Thus, the feet are rapid and honest indicators of a booby's current level of nourishment. As blue feet are signals that reliably indicate the immunological and health condition of a booby, coloration is favored through sexual selection.

Female selection
The brightness of the feet decreases with age, so females tend to mate with younger males with brighter feet, which have higher fertility and greater ability to provide paternal care than older males. In a cross-fostering experiment, foot color reflects paternal contribution to raising chicks; chicks raised by foster fathers with brighter feet grew faster than chicks raised by foster males with duller feet. Females continuously evaluate their partners' condition based on foot color. In one experiment, males whose partners had laid a first egg in the nest had their feet dulled by makeup. The female partners laid smaller second eggs a few days later. As duller feet usually indicate a decrease in health and possibly genetic quality, it is adaptive for these females to decrease their investment in the second egg. The smaller second eggs contained less yolk concentration, which could influence embryo development, hatching success, and subsequent chick growth and survival. In addition, they contained less yolk androgens. As androgen plays an important role in chick survival, the experiment suggested female blue-footed boobies use the attractiveness and perceived genetic quality of their mates to determine how much resources they should allocate to their eggs. This supports the differential allocation theory, which predicts that parents care more for their offspring when paired with attractive mates.

Male selection
Males also assess their partner's reproductive value and adjust their investment in the brood according to their partner's condition. Females that lay larger and brighter eggs are in better condition and have greater reproductive value. Therefore, males tend to display higher attentiveness and parental care to larger eggs, since those eggs were produced by a female with apparent good genetic quality. Smaller, duller eggs garnered less paternal care. Female foot color is also observed as an indication of perceived female condition. In one experiment, the color of eggs was muted by researchers, males were willing to exercise similar care for both large eggs and small eggs if their mate had brightly colored feet, whereas males paired with dull-footed females only incubated larger eggs. Researchers also found that males did not increase their care when females exhibited both bright feet and high-quality offspring.

Hunting and feeding
The blue-footed booby is a specialized fish eater, feeding on small schooling fish such as sardines, anchovies, mackerel, and flying fish. It will also take squid and offal. The blue-footed booby hunts by diving into the ocean after prey, sometimes from a great height, and can also swim underwater in pursuit of its prey. It can hunt singly, in pairs, or in larger flocks. Boobies travel in parties of about 12 to areas of water with large schools of small fish. When the lead bird sees a fish shoal in the water, it signals to the rest of the group and they all dive in unison, pointing their bodies down like arrows.

Plunge diving can be done from heights of 10 - 30.5 m and even up to 100 m. These birds hit the water around 97 km/h and can go to depths of 25 m below the water surface. Their skulls contain special air sacs that protect the brain from enormous pressure. Prey are usually eaten while the birds are still under water. Individuals prefer to eat on their own instead of with their hunting group, usually in the early morning or late afternoon. Males and females fish differently, which may contribute to why blue-foots, unlike other boobies, raise more than one young. The male is smaller and has a proportionally larger tail, which enables the male to fish in shallow areas and deep waters. The female is larger and can carry more food. Both the male and female feed the chicks through regurgitation.

Breeding
The blue-footed booby is monogamous, although it has the potential to be bigamous. It is an opportunistic breeder, with the breeding cycle occurring every 8 to 9 months. The courtship of the blue-footed booby consists of the male flaunting his blue feet and dancing to impress the female. The male begins by showing his feet, strutting in front of the female. Then, he presents nest materials and finishes the mating ritual with a final display of his feet. The dance also includes "sky-pointing", which involves the male pointing his head and bill up to the sky while keeping the wings and tail raised.

Rearing young
The blue-footed booby is one of only two species of booby that raises more than one chick in a breeding cycle.

The female blue-footed booby lays two or three eggs, about four to five days apart. Both male and female take turns incubating the eggs, while the nonsitting bird keeps watch. Since the blue-footed booby does not have a brooding patch, it uses its feet to keep the eggs warm. The incubation period is 41–45 days. Usually, one or two chicks are hatched from the two or three eggs originally laid. The male and female share parental responsibilities. The male provides food for the young in the first part of their lives because of his specialized diving. The female takes over when the demand is higher. Chicks feed off the regurgitated fish in the adult's mouth. If the parent blue-footed booby does not have enough food for all of the chicks, it will only feed the biggest chick, ensuring that at least one will survive.

Like other sexually size-dimorphic birds, female blue-footed boobies usually favor the smaller sex during times of food scarcity. Booby chicks do not show clear differences in size based on sex, but females do grow faster than males, which means they require greater parental investment. Blue-footed boobies display behavior that is described in the flexible investment hypothesis, which states that a female adjusts the allocation of resources to maximize her lifetime reproductive success. This was shown in an experiment in which females had their flight feathers trimmed, so that they had to expend more energy during flights to obtain food for their broods. Female chicks of such mothers were more strongly affected than their brothers, in that they had lower masses and shorter wing lengths.

Fledglings are more likely to become reproductive adults when one parent is old and the other young. The reason for this is unknown, but nestlings with different aged parents are least infected by ticks.

Brood hierarchy due to asynchronous hatching
The blue-footed booby lays one to three eggs in one nest at a time, although 80% of nests only contain two eggs. Eggs are laid five days apart. After the first egg is laid, it is immediately incubated, which results in a difference in chick hatching times. The first chick hatches four days before the other, so it receives a four-day head start in growth compared to its younger sibling. This asynchronous hatching serves many purposes. First, it spaces out the difficult time period in rearing during which newborn chicks are too feeble to accept regurgitated food. In addition, it reduces the chance that parents will suffer total brood loss to predators such as the milk snake.

Asynchronous hatching may also reduce sibling rivalry. Experimentally manipulated synchronous broods produced more aggressive chicks; chicks in asynchronous broods were less violent. This pattern of behavior arguably occurs through a clearly established brood hierarchy in asynchronously hatched siblings. Although asynchronous hatching is not vital for the formation of brood hierarchies (the experimentally synchronous broods established them, as well), it does aid in efficient brood reduction when food levels are low. Subordinate chicks in asynchronous broods die more quickly, thus relieving the parents of the burden of feeding both offspring when resources are insufficient to properly do so.

Facultative siblicide
Blue-footed booby chicks practice facultative siblicide, opting to cause the death of a sibling based on environmental conditions. The A-chick, which hatches first, will kill the younger B-chick if a food shortage exists. The initial size disparity between the A-chick and B-chick is retained for at least the first two months of life. During lean times, the A-chick may attack the B-chick by pecking at its younger sibling vigorously, or it may simply drag its younger sibling by the neck and oust it from the nest. Experiments in which the necks of chicks were taped to inhibit food ingestion showed that sibling aggression increased sharply when the weight of the A-chicks dropped below 20-25% of their potential. A steep increase in pecking occurred below that threshold, indicating that siblicide is, in part, triggered by the dominant chick's weight, and not simply by the size difference between the siblings. Younger broods (those less than six weeks old) had three times the rate of pecking than older broods. This is perhaps due to the relative inability of young B-chicks to defend themselves against an A-chick attack.

The elder sibling also may harm the younger one by controlling access to the food delivered by the parents. A-chicks always receive food before B-chicks. Although subordinate chicks beg just as much as their dominant siblings, the older chicks are able to divert the parents' attention to themselves, as their large size and conspicuousness serve as more effective stimuli.

However, another experiment showed that booby chicks do not operate exclusively by the "leftovers hypothesis", where younger chicks are fed only after the elder ones are completely satiated. Instead, researchers identified a certain degree of tolerance towards the younger sibling during short-term periods of food shortages. This hypothesis suggests that the elder chicks reduce food intake moderately, just enough so that the younger sibling does not starve. Although this system works during short-term food shortages, it is unsustainable during prolonged periods of dearth. In this latter case, the elder sibling usually becomes aggressive and siblicidal.

Parental role in siblicide

Blue-footed booby parents are passive spectators of this intrabrood conflict. They do not intervene in their offspring's struggles, even at the point of siblicide. Booby parents even appear to facilitate the demise of the younger sibling by creating and maintaining the inequality between the two chicks. They reinforce the brood hierarchy by feeding the dominant chick more often than the subordinate one. Thus, they respond to the brood hierarchy and not to the level of begging when deciding which chick to feed, as both chicks beg in equal amounts. This level of passivity towards the very possible death of their younger offspring may be an indication that brood reduction is advantageous for the parents. The "insurance egg hypothesis" views the second egg and resulting chick as insurance for the parent in case the first egg does not hatch, or if food levels are higher than expected.

However, booby parents may not be as indifferent as they seem. The parental behavior described above may be masking parent-offspring conflict. Blue-footed booby parents make steep-sided nests that serve to deter the early ejection of the younger chick by the older sibling. This is in direct contrast to the masked booby, a species in which siblicide is obligate due to the ease in which older siblings can eject younger chicks from their flat nests. When blue-footed booby nests were experimentally flattened, parents restored them to their original steepness. Blue-footed booby chicks that were placed in masked booby nests were more likely to engage in siblicide, which reveals that parental care somehow affects the level of siblicide. Parents also appear to respond more frequently to chicks that are in poorer body conditions during periods of food deprivation. Egg-mass analysis shows that in clutches produced at the beginning of the breeding season, the second egg in a nest were, on average, 1.5% heavier than the first. Since heavier eggs give rise to heavier chicks that have greater fitness, this evidence indicates that parents may try to rectify any disadvantages that accompany a late hatching date by investing more into the second egg. Hormonal analysis of eggs also shows that no parental favoritism seems to exist in regards to androgen allocation. This may simply be because the species has evolved simpler ways to manipulate asymmetries and maximize parental reproductive output. What may at first appear to be parental cooperation with the elder chick may in fact mask a genetic parent-offspring conflict.

Long-term effects of hierarchies
A dominant-subordinate relationship always exists between chicks in a brood. Although dominant A-chicks grow faster and survive past infancy more often than subordinate B-chicks, no difference in reproductive success is seen between the two types of siblings during adulthood. In one longitudinal study, no long-term effects of dominance hierarchies were apparent; in fact, subordinate chicks were often observed producing nests of their own before their dominant siblings.

Communication
Blue-footed boobies make raucous or polysyllabic grunts or shouts and thin whistling noises. The males of the species have been known to throw up their heads and whistle at a passing, flying female. These ritual displays are also a form of communication.

Mates can recognize each other by their calls. Although calls differed between sexes, unique individual signatures were present. Both males and females can discriminate the calls of their mates from others.

Population decline
Concerns of a decline in the booby population of the Galápagos Islands prompted a research project in its cause. The project, completed in April 2014, confirmed the population decline. The blue-footed booby population appears to be having trouble breeding, thus is slowly declining. The decline is feared to be long-term, but annual data collection is needed for a firm conclusion that this is not a normal fluctuation.

Food problems may be the cause of an observed failure of the birds to even try to breed. This is related to a decline in sardines (Sardinops sagax), an important part of the boobies' diet. Earlier work on Española Island had successful breeding in blue-footed boobies that have access to sardines, in which case their diet consists essentially wholly of sardines. However, sardines have been largely absent from the Española area since 1997, as has been shown from Nazca boobies there, which also prefer sardines, but can breed using other prey. In 2012–13, roughly only half of prey items in the boobies' diet were sardines. No evidence was seen of other possible causes for the decline, such as effects of humans, introduced predators, or disease.

title: Blue-footed booby


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Lode Runner

Lode Runner is a 2D puzzle-platform game, developed by Doug Smith and published by Broderbund in 1983. Its gameplay mechanics are similar to Space Panic from 1980. The player controls a character who must collect all the gold pieces in a level and get to the end while being chased by a number of enemies. It is one of the first games to include a level editor.

After the original game, a number of remakes, spin-offs and sequels were published in the Lode Runner series for different computers and consoles by different developers and publishers. Tozai Games holds the copyright and trademark rights.

Gameplay

The player controls a stick figure who must collect all the gold in a level while avoiding guards who try to catch the player. After collecting all the gold, the player must reach the top of the screen to reach the next level. There are 150 levels in the game, which progressively challenge players' problem-solving abilities or reaction times.

Levels have a multi-story, brick platform motif, with ladders and suspended hand-to-hand bars that offer multiple ways to travel. Guards can pick up gold bars by running over them, but any individual guard may carry no more than one bar at a time. The player can dig holes into floors to temporarily trap guards and may safely walk atop any who have fallen into holes. Should a guard be carrying a bar of gold when he falls into a hole, he will drop it and the player can pick it up. Holes dug by the player fill themselves in after a short delay. A trapped guard who cannot escape a hole before it fills is consumed, immediately respawning in a random location at the top of the level. Unlike guards, the player's character may not climb up out of a hole, and he will be killed if it fills before he can escape by other means. Floors may contain trapdoors, through which the player and guards will fall, and bedrock, through which the player cannot dig.

The player can dig a hole only to either side of his position and may not dig directly beneath his own feet. In order to dig through multiple layers of bricks, the player must create a gap whose width is at least equal to the number of layers. However, exceptions to this rule arise when the player digs from the position of standing on a ladder, or hanging from a hand-to-hand bar, which allows the player to repeatedly dig and descend one row. This kind of digging is involved in solving many of the levels.

The player starts with five lives; each level completion awards an extra life. Should a guard catch the player, one life is subtracted, and the current level restarts. The player's character can fall from arbitrary heights without any injury but cannot jump, and players can trap themselves in pits from which the only escape is to abort the level, costing a life, and begin again.

Enemy AI

The guards do not always take the shortest path to the player and can move in counterintuitive ways. Sometimes, when the player and a guard are on the same ladder, for instance, the guard will move away from the player. In general, depending on their exact positioning relative to Lode Runner, the guards sometimes appear to be repelled. Mastering the game involves developing the intuition to predict the movement of the guards.

Permitted contact
The player may come into contact with a guard directly from above, with the stick figure's feet touching the guard's head. This is what enables the player to walk over guards who are temporarily stuck in a hole that has been dug. It is also possible to make this contact while both the guard and the player are in free fall, since the player not only runs faster than the guards, but also falls faster; moreover, it is possible to survive the feet-to-head contact while a guard is standing on a platform and begins to move. Both forms of contact are necessary to solve some levels. Sometimes it is necessary to liberate a trapped guard by digging while standing on his head but then moving rapidly in the opposite direction when the guard begins marching to freedom. In a few levels, it is necessary to use a falling guard as a bridge to reach an otherwise unreachable area. One subtlety is that if a down movement is initiated while standing on a guard's head, or briefly touching the guard's head during free fall, the consequences are fatal.

Trapping and using guards
In some levels, guards can be deliberately trapped in various ways. For instance, they can be lured into entering a part of the level from which there is no escape. In some situations, the player can liberate trapped guards by digging them out. In some levels, the player must exploit the guards by having them collect gold pieces which are positioned such that whoever collects them will become trapped. When the guard collects the piece and becomes trapped, the player can release the guard and then later steal the gold when the guard drops it or falls into a hole.

In some levels, there are gold pieces which can be collected only by killing guards by digging holes to trap them. Deceased guards come back to life from locations near the top of the screen, which may allow them to reach parts of the level that cannot be reached by the player.

Traversal orders
Some levels require careful ordering of traversal, because they are divided into zones connected by passages which are impossible to traverse in the reverse direction. If a gold piece remains in an unreachable zone, the player may have to abort the level to start again, losing a life, unless there is a way to coax a guard into bringing the gold.

Timing
Some of the game's puzzles in the advanced levels are time-sensitive. The player must dig in order to penetrate the interior of some cavern to collect gold, and quickly return the same way before the digging repairs itself, enclosing Lode Runner in that cavern with no means of escape.

Some puzzles require deliberate timing among the digging actions because Lode Runner must run over previously dug-out tiles that have just repaired themselves, while having enough time to pass through ones which have not yet repaired.

Development
Around late 1980, high school student James Bratsanos heard from a friend about a new arcade video game, Space Panic by Universal, which involves climbing platforms and ladders while digging holes to trap monsters. Bratsanos was intrigued by his friend's description of the concept, and he wanted to develop it further. He began writing a Commodore PET program, called Suicide, using simple text-based graphics. Due to his lack of programming experience, there were no pre-programmed levels, but he instead built "an engine that could interpret a game level and then run a processing loop on the monsters". This novel design later evolved into the concept of a level editor.

At the University of Washington in 1981, Bratsanos met two other students, architecture student Douglas E. Smith and Tracy Steinbeck. Following the release of Nintendo's arcade platformer Donkey Kong that year, the three students began working on a program called Kong, which evolved the concepts of Suicide. Bratsanos later left the project to pursue his studies, and Smith continued to develop Kong into the prototype of what later became Lode Runner. Kong was written for a Prime Computer 550 minicomputer limited to one building on the UW campus. Kong was soon ported to VAX minicomputers, which had more terminals available on campus. The game was programmed in Fortran using ASCII character graphics. When Kong was ported to the VAX, some Pascal sections were mixed into the original Fortran code.

Over one weekend in 1982, Smith recreated a crude, playable version in 6502 assembly language on an Apple II+ and renamed the game Miner. Through the end of the year, he refined that version, which was black-and-white with no joystick support. He submitted a rough version to Broderbund around October 1982 and received a one-line rejection letter in response to the effect of "Thank you for submitting your game concept. Unfortunately, it does not fit within our product line."

Miner, like its text-based Kong predecessors, had only simple animation where characters move across the screen in block increments. It was too primitive for an acceptable commercial product as Broderbund wanted detailed pixel-level movement. Smith's new game would be one of the first to include a level editor for user generated content, allowing players to create levels for the game. Smith was given a $10,000 advance by Broderbund to develop the inter-square animation and to provide 150 levels of play. In a 2010 interview, game designer John Romero claimed that Smith added the level-editing function at the request of neighborhood kids he had testing the game, and "a ton" of the levels they designed ended up in the final game. Smith borrowed money to purchase a color monitor and joystick and continued to improve the game. Around Christmas of 1982, he submitted the game, renamed Lode Runner, to four publishers and received offers from all four: Sierra, Sirius, Synergistic, and Broderbund. He took the deal with Broderbund.

Release and ports
Lode Runner was originally released on June 23, 1983. The original microcomputer versions were for the Apple II, Atari 8-bit computers, VIC-20, Commodore 64, and IBM PC compatibles. The VIC-20 version was released on cartridge, including the level editor. The Commodore 64 had both a disk and cartridge release, with the latter having 32 levels. The IBM PC port was originally on a self-booting disk and is incompatible with video cards other than CGA. A 1986 MS-DOS release runs on any video card.

The Famicom version was released by Hudson Soft in 1984 (North American NES release in 1986) and became one of the earliest third-party games made for that system. It has 50 levels, scrolling screens, added music, and graphics redone in a more cartoon-like style. In addition, fruits and vegetables randomly appear which may be grabbed for additional points. A level editor was included, which in Japan used the Famicom's Family BASIC tape drive to save one's work; however, as with many US localisations, the NES lacked the tape drive and thus there is no way to save levels created with the US release.

An arcade version of Lode Runner was produced by Irem in 1984. It was notably the first time an American computer game was adapted into a Japanese arcade game. It had some added features like the ability to hang off the ends of ladders and an improved enemy AI.

A port for the Macintosh 128K followed in January 1985; it runs on machines up to OS 6 and can be used on System 7 with a patch. Other versions include those for the Atari ST, ZX Spectrum, a licensed version for MSX published by ASCII Corporation, SG-1000, Windows 3.1x, and Game Boy.

Broderbund released an enhanced version, Championship Lode Runner, in 1985, with 50 levels and a higher difficulty. The company offered a commemorative certificate to anyone who could submit proof of having beaten the game (and submitted proof of purchase to show that their copy of the game was not pirated). It was ported to the Apple, Atari, C64, MSX, and IBM PC, as well as the NES (although that version did not reach North America).

The Atari 8-bit version of Lode Runner was converted to cartridge and re-released by Atari Corporation in 1987, as one of the series of releases for the Atari XEGS console. This version contains all 150 levels and the level editor, which requires a disk drive.

Reception
Lode Runner was very successful. It was Broderbund's second best-selling Commodore game as of late 1987, and sales had surpassed 300,000 copies by August 1984. It was the top-selling computer game in the United States during 1983. By 1985, the game had sold just as many copies in Japan. , Hudson Soft's Famicom (NES) version had sold about 1.5 million cartridges in Japan and all versions of the game had sold over 3 million units worldwide, including more than 2 million sales in Japan alone.

Softline in 1983 praised Lode Runner, calling it "smooth, thoughtful, and quite addictive". The magazine approved of its large number of unique levels, level editor ("the possibilities are astounding"), and emphasis on "wits and strategy" over violence. Computer Gaming World praised Lode Runner's unusually easy-to-use level editor and the strategy necessary for an arcade title, describing it as "one of the few thinking men's arcade games". In August 1984, Computer Gaming World held a contest for the best reader-built level. Praises for the introduction of strategy into the "climbing game" genre and for the intuitive level editor were repeated in Video magazine's review of the game as well as praise for its graphics and animation, with the Apple II version being described as "stand[ing] out far ahead of the pack".

Ahoy! in 1984 called the game "a top-notch action game that requires both a quick mind and an agile joystick". With the "easy-to-use game generator", the magazine concluded that "Lode Runner is one of the best games available for the C-64. Unconditionally and wholeheartedly recommended". PC Magazine gave the game 16.25 out of 18 points. The magazine called the game "a tour de force of American ingenuity ... the first release in a long, long time that can honestly bear the title, 'computer game' ... Lode Runner uses the power of the PC to create something much more than a video version of Ping Pong. This game requires thought, too." The magazine praised the IBM PC version's graphics, increasingly difficult level design, and the level editor. The Commodore 64 Home Companion said that "there's lots of education hidden in" the level editor, concluding that Lode Runner "is one of the first of a new breed of computer game that lets the player be a creator".

By 1985, the game was still selling well, with Video magazine reporting that it was the 6th best-selling recreational title in March and April of that year. Zzap!64 called the Commodore 64 version "not one of the most recent games but certainly one of the best ... a classic for a long time to come ... graphically minuscule and aurally crude, the game's sheer addiction kept my eyes propped open until the owls went to bed".

In 1984, Lode Runner was awarded "1984 Computer Game of the Year" at the 5th annual Arkie Awards. Judges praised its "outstanding design", and described it as "fascinating", "irresistible", and as "the thinking player's climbing conquest". Softline readers named Lode Runner the most popular Apple and fourth most-popular Atari program of 1983. In 1993 the Spectrum version of the game was voted number 37 in the Your Sinclair Official Top 100 Games of All Time. GameSpot named Lode Runner as one of the "Greatest Games of All Time". In 1996, Computer Gaming World declared Lode Runner the 80th-best computer game ever released. Time in 2010 rated Lode Runner #1 game in "The 10 Greatest Games for the Apple II" list. Game Informer placed the game 52nd on their top 100 video games of all time in 2001.

Orson Scott Card wrote in Compute! in 1989 that its editor was the first game that let him and his family express their creativity through gaming. Tetris designer Alexey Pajitnov stated in 2008 that Lode Runner was his favorite puzzle game for many years.

Arcade
In 1984, Irem developed an arcade conversion of Lode Runner. It contains 24 remixed levels from the 150 original levels. Irem brought many of its arcade-inspired levels to the Famicom Disk System with the names Super Lode Runner and Super Lode Runner II. In Japan, Game Machine listed Lode Runner on their August 1, 1984 issue as being the most successful table arcade cabinet of the month. The arcade version has numerous sequels, including these:

 * Lode Runner: The Bungeling Strikes Back (1984), selecting 30 levels based on the original game developed for the arcade. The gameplay is almost exactly the same (save the addition of a two-player mode) and the only heavy modification was the graphics and advancement to a 512-color palette. In Japan, Game Machine listed Lode Runner: The Bungeling Strikes Back on their March 1, 1985 issue as the seventh most successful table arcade unit of the month.
 * Lode Runner: Majin No Fukkatsu (1985), also known as Lode Runner: The Golden Labyrinth, developed by Irem. In Japan, Game Machine listed it on their December 15, 1985 issue as the top-grossing table arcade unit during that month. It went on to be Japan's ninth highest-grossing table arcade game during the first half of 1986.
 * Lode Runner: Teikoku Karano Dasshutsu (1986)
 * Lode Runner: The Dig Fight (2000)

1990s

 * Lode Runner: The Lost Labyrinth, 1990 updated version for the TurboGrafx-16 featuring all 150 levels of the 1983 set.
 * Lode Runner: The Legend Returns, a 1994 Sierra incarnation of the original game with enhanced graphics and tools.
 * Lode Runner Online: The Mad Monks' Revenge, the 1995 remake which replaced all the elements of the previous plus new online play.
 * Lode Runner 2 (1998), a game with isometric 3D gameplay.
 * Lode Runner (1998), a compilation game for PlayStation, which includes Lode Runner: The Legend Returns and Lode Runner Extra.
 * Lode Runner 3-D (1999) for the Nintendo 64.

Several versions of Lode Runner were not released in the U.S., such as Lode Runner Twin and Power Lode Runner (1999, SFC), which vary gameplay, mostly by adding different characters and scenarios. Another title, Battle Lode Runner, was originally exclusive to Japan, but made available on 23 April 2007 as the first Japan-only game to appear on Nintendo's Virtual Console service. The original Lode Runner followed in June 2007. There is also a Cubic Lode Runner, a 3-D Lode Runner variant released only in Japan for the GameCube and PlayStation 2.

The NES version, developed by Hudson Soft, marked the first appearance of Bombermen as the opposing robots. The end screen to Bomberman for the NES notes that the original White Bomberman has turned human and hints at his appearance in another game, with the Lode Runner behind him. In the Japanese version, the reference is more direct: "Congratulations - Bomber Man becomes Runner - See you again in Lode Runner".

In Japan, the Famicom version of Lode Runner allows editing and creating levels to share with friends using a Famicom Data Recorder.

Hudson Soft released a version of Lode Runner for Nintendo DS in 2006.

An unreleased version of the game for the Atari Lynx was discovered in 2008 on an old Atari Corp. hard drive.

2000s

A remake of Lode Runner, developed by Tozai and Southend Interactive, was released on April 22, 2009. The game features revamped 3D graphics, additional game modes, cooperative and competitive multiplayer support, six new block types and a level editor, as well as live leaderboards and a timeline of the game's history.

2010s
Lode Runner Classic was made available as an Xbox Live enhanced game for Windows Phone 7 series of phones on July 18, 2012. It features the graphics, gameplay, and 150 levels from the original Lode Runner game. Lode Runner Classic was released for iOS and Android phones on January 17, 2013.

Lode Runner 1 is a remake of the original NES game, and has the same mechanic, in brand new 2D graphics. It is different to the other same-year release in the series, Lode Runner Legacy. It was released for free on Android, iPhone and iPad on May 18, 2017.

2020s
A new Lode Runner game was announced for the Intellivision Amico. It is being made in partnership between Intellivision Entertainment and Tozai Games.

Dion Olsthoorn licensed the original Lode Runner from Tozai to create a version for the Atari 2600. The ZeroPage Homebrew channel featured the gameplay and an interview with the programmer on their Twitch Livestream on October 8, 2022.

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: Lode Runner


text:
Khmelnytsky (disambiguation)

Khmelnytsky or variants may refer to:

People

 * Khmelnytskyi (surname), a surname of Ukrainian origin
 * Bohdan Khmelnytsky, Cossack leader
 * Khmelnytsky Uprising, 1648-1657

Places

 * Khmelnytskyi, Ukraine, a city in western Ukraine
 * Khmelnytskyi Oblast
 * Khmelnytskyi Raion
 * Pereiaslav-Khmelnytskyi Raion, Kyiv Oblast, Ukraine

Ships

 * Khmelnytsky, a Tarantul-class corvette of the Ukrainian Navy
 * SOVIET CRUISER Chervona Ukraina, known as Hetman Bohdan Khmelnytsky 1918–1922

Other

 * Bohdan Khmelnytsky Battalion, an alleged Russian volunteer battalion
 * Khmelnytskyi Nuclear Power Plant, Ukraine

title: Khmelnytsky (disambiguation)


text:
Wikipedia:Requests for comment/TDC

Background
TDC was listed as a vandal on April 4, 2004. He already got banned once for telling another user to "suck his own dick". He broke the three edit rule, restarted an article that had just been voted to merge with another one, and more can be seen at the vandal page. Get-back-world-respect 00:08, 7 May 2004 (UTC)

Comments moved from Vandalism in Progress
I retract my prior complaints about TDC. This user is okay with me. Perhaps he's the most honest Wikipedian. 172 15:28, 20 May 2004 (UTC)

 * TDC created an article about "Oil for food allegations" when he saw his edit wars at the 2003 invasion of Iraq were fruitless, and then tried to vandalize against the consensus to merge his allegations into the Oil for food article. His continuously inappropriate writing ("suck your own dick", "you have met in TDC the biggest most stubborn prick on the face of planet earth, and I will not stop until your stomach churns with bile at the site of [TDC]" , or "whine fest" shows very well this person is not here to contribute valuable information.
 * When his attempts to delete "The bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki killed hundreds of thousands of people, most of them civilians, and their military use remains controversial." from an article failed, he claimed that only "limp dicked western historians" doubt his opinion and later changed the statement into "The bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki killed an estimated 275,000 people, most of them civilians, but many credit their use with ending the Second World War."
 * He then listed the article for deletion without any explanation at talk and kept reverting rather than argumenting. Get-back-world-respect 23:43, 22 Apr 2004 (UTC)
 * These changes seem perfectly reasonable to me, and his listing of any page on VfD can stand or fall on its own merits. I fail to see how what you posted here is even close to vandalism.  RickK

 * So "limp-dicked historians" is perfectly reasonable and it is ok to ignore the policy to discuss before you list for deletion unless the case is clear? Why don't you log in if you write here? Get-back-world-respect 00:03, 23 Apr 2004 (UTC)
 * Comments on Talk pages are not vandalism per se. 159.225.155.86 00:05, 23 Apr 2004 (UTC)

 * His dick-speach is unacceptable, so are his continuous edit wars, and I even regard his listing for deletion as vandalism because he did not discuss it at all before and just used it on a page that did not fit with his personal view. Up to now there are 9 votes for keep, none for deletion. Why do you not log in before you write here? Get-back-world-respect 00:28, 23 Apr 2004 (UTC)
 * I don't think RickK even wrote that comment. Looking at the edit history of ViP, it doesn't appear that he's made any edits to the former "User:TDC" section. [ alerante | “” 23:30, 14 May 2004 (UTC) ]

He continues with his personal attacks even when voting on an adminship request:  Get-back-world-respect 22:46, 5 May 2004 (UTC)

Tried to personally insult me on his user page. Get-back-world-respect 16:55, 7 May 2004 (UTC)

TDC is apparently working hard to change articles to present his point of view. This is not a bad thing in itself - NPOV comes only from collaboration between people of different points of view. I'm however going to second GBWR's view here; TDC's attitude and methods are inappropriate and as things stand TDC isn't helpful to Wikipedia. Fredrik 17:30, 7 May 2004 (UTC)

I am just poking a little fun at GBWR on my own talk page. He or she has made every attempt possible to slander me and get me banned. Clearly this person has some issues, and has been spoiling for a fight with someone like ever since they got onto Wiki. I have contributed quite a bit to Wiki, and not only in politically charged articles as my detractors would claim.

No one likes a tattle GBWR. I can be quite reasonable if approached reasonably. I think the overall quality of Wiki improves drastically when two dissimilar contributors can work out agreements in a grown and civil manner as I have done with 172 on several occasions now. But I can and will be the worlds biggest prick if I do not feel that I am being treated fairly. Instead of running around and whining to every admin you can find, in some lame attempt to get me banned, why not try and act like a grown up.

Stop concentrating on this facade of “getting back world respect” and try and gain my respect.

Act like an adult, and I will treat you as such. TDC 17:39, May 7, 2004 (UTC)

In defense of TDC

 * I can vouch for what TDC is saying. This is 100% correct. TDC is always honest, he knows what he wants, and he has a realistic view of the balance of power on this site. He can work with users who come from very different perspectives and he can work toward NPOV. BTW, he has a sharp sense of humor when he's making fun of people. 172 15:31, 20 May 2004 (UTC)

 * I am sorry, as a coincidence I never came across an article where you behaved appropriately. But I saw you do a lot of things that are not meant to be done here, so I added references to your vandal listing. I never got personal though, I see no reason to offend people I do not even know. You, however, do not seem to have understood basic wiki principles like " no personal attacks". Get-back-world-respect 22:01, 7 May 2004 (UTC)
 * TDC "apologized" for trying to insult me on his page by removing the picture and telling me "Listen chooch (...) Seriously now, shut up. Or you might be up for furhter nomination." "shut the fuck up" and called me a "dildo".
 * The rules are straightforward: No personal attacks. Over there it says Many Wikipedians remove personal attacks on sight. In extreme cases, users have been banned for repeatedly engaging in personal attacks. Specific types of slur covered by this include but are not limited to the following: * Political affiliation attacks (often, calling someone a Nazi) - On his userpage TDC calls indymedia "Nazimedia". He already got banned once. Get-back-world-respect 00:40, 8 May 2004 (UTC)

- "I have contributed quite a bit to Wiki, and not only in politically charged articles as my detractors would claim." I will try not to laugh.... Ericd 19:24, 7 May 2004 (UTC)

Seing as TDC referred to me as "biatch" and "honey cakes", seldom watches his tongue in conversations, and... well, I don't even want to get into his edits. Let it just suffice to say that I've had a less than pleasant experience with him. I'm not perfect myself, and I'll be the first to admit that; but resorting to adopting pet names and cursing at opponents is just too much. Rei 05:45, 8 May 2004 (UTC)

copyright infrigement
It seems like some contributions from TDC are copyright infrigement. See Talk:Hugo Chávez. Ericd 18:16, 8 May 2004 (UTC)

 * He's done that in the 2003 invasion of Iraq before, also. Rei 16:47, 10 May 2004 (UTC)

Revert wars and personal attacks again
TDC again ignored the three revert rule at Atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki "an edit war? BRING IT ON, my little monkey" and personally attacks others "you dont (sic!) know jack shit". A user who writes "Who the fuck cares about a concensus." clearly is not meant to join a wiki project. Get-back-world-respect 00:44, 3 Aug 2004 (UTC)

 * Will you please quit your bitching. Do you do this every time you cannot win an argument? You know, go whining to authority figures. TDC 01:36, Aug 3, 2004 (UTC)

 * Thank you for proving again that your only means to "win an argument" is inappropriate language. Get-back-world-respect 02:13, 3 Aug 2004 (UTC)

 * Do you ever sit back and listen to yourself? Seriously. I thought that most children learned when they were seven that the only thing tattling got them was a severe ass whomping.

 * Every time you get into an edit war with a contributor instead of talking about specific disputed statements in an article you just find some admin and bitch and moan to them. I think you would find it more productive to talk tghan whine,

 * I have a feeling that you may be nominated for another award in the not so near future. TDC 02:24, Aug 3, 2004 (UTC)

 * As you would have noted if you checked talk pages and edit summaries, I discuss, argue, and acknowledge the limitation of reverts unlike you. Furthermore, I never personally attack others as it says more about the one who does it than anyone else. Get-back-world-respect 02:31, 3 Aug 2004 (UTC)

 * discuss, argue, and acknowledge  more like whine bitch and moan TDC 02:41, Aug 3, 2004 (UTC)

Just glancing over the edit summaries of TDC's recent contributions I see him making repeated personal attacks and threats of edit wars. I haven't looked at what's being argued about, it's not relevant and it doesn't matter who's "right." This is simply not the way to go about things here on Wikipedia. Bryan 05:39, 3 Aug 2004 (UTC)

With groupthink and legalism increasingly prevalent on Wikipedia, I find it refreshing to see someone bluntly state what he believes and bluntly state his objectives regarding articles. This makes it easier to understand where TDC is coming from, and in turn, how to reach compromises with him. Once you people start disregarding the over-the-top barbs, all of you will find that it's very easy to work with him. 172 16:01, 4 Aug 2004 (UTC)
 * Having been looking at Atomic_bombings_of_Hiroshima_and_Nagasaki I have to comment that I find TDC approach to editing and general politeness inappropriate for constructively presenting an issue on which there will obviously be strongly conflicting POV. It seems a very achievable task to represent two sides of the debate on this page, and his lowering of the tone in discussion has certainly hindered this endeavour. On a side note, as a newbie to the internal politics of the Wikipedia community, I find it somewhat remarkable that 172, who appears to be standing for overall admin status, should be supporting use of such offensive and uncooperative editing. --Zippedmartin 18:23, 8 Aug 2004 (UTC)
 * No, no-- I'm supporting him because of his cooperative editing, and I am speaking from the basis of experience. He once called me a "Marxist who laughs at his victims," but I got over it once I found out how easy it is to work with him when the interaction centered on sources, facts, substantiation, and, in short, on the content of articles and the merit of his proposed changes, not on his blunt language. If you think some of his changes are biased, then add some more detail contextualizing the information or offering the contending POV. He'll accept it reasonably discuss the changes. 172 06:27, 11 Aug 2004 (UTC)

So he acts like an asshole but is a smart person to work with, is that your point? 209.197.154.139

I have looked into this myself, and am of the same opinion of GBWR. This user is very problematic. He also makes blatently pov edits, and initiates endless revert wars to protect these edits. Different methods in the dispute resolution process have been tried on multiple occasions, and have not resulted in any perceptible change in his conduct. Binding steps should be taken. Kevin Baas | talk 00:31, 2004 Aug 6 (UTC)
 * Of course he has a strong POV. But he's willing to meet other users halfway when they have a command of the facts and are willing to work with him. See, e.g., Hugo Chavez and History of the Soviet Union (1927-1953), where he worked very well with others with considerably different backgrounds (including me) and helped improve both articles. 172 02:34, 6 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Are there any new developments on the situation ? I have been engaged in "nonfriendly discussions" with him about various articles and I really think that his unreflective spreading of Right-Wing Pro-US-Proaganda seriously hurts Wikipedia. I have wasted hours trying to clean up after him which I could have used much more productively to write new articles - but I am just unable to ignore what he writes. Turrican

I am sorry if I dont want articles like The US Invasion of Afghanistan to turn into the Z-Mag encyclopedic compendium. After going over my edits and your edits, its clear why my still stand. TDC 17:20, Oct 6, 2004 (UTC)

 * User TDC and his crony Adam Carr are conspiring to keep certain articles grossly one-sided and right-wing. Their constant reversion of any changes to Khmer Rouge that didn't suit their political preferences led to the freezing of the entire article several days ago. They have also vowed to revert my future changes to a wide range of articles. There can be no compromising with people who refuse to discuss anything but merely insert propaganda and delete any hint that there might be another side than theirs to an issue. Both of these people have insisted on attacking other users personally, including me. I do not believe that they are here to make positive contributions; on the contrary, their destructive and disruptive behaviour gets in the way of others' efforts. Shorne 20:28, 7 Oct 2004 (UTC)

 * Umm last I checked, I spent the better part of 1000 words in talk explaining why your changes are/were complete garbage. TDC 20:39, Oct 7, 2004 (UTC)

 * I'm still thinking that NPOV has no sense for TDC. Strangely 172 supports TDC. IMO he/she has the same kind of view about NPOV but on the opposite side, for instance he/she still support that the Kmher Rouge were US-backed. This is an assertion that I have renounced fight. At worse, they have a vision of Wikipedia as an energy consuming eternal war between opposite conceptions, at best (Hmm... not best... only not so bad...) they will make some political agreement "OK for Hugo Chavez but do't touch my US-backed Khmer Rouge...". I wonder if they get some money for that ? As I don't get any penny, cents, kopeck, centime or candy for contributing in Wikipedia I found this controversies boring and inefficient. As for myself except on few subject were I'm a primary witness I found that it was a quick way to get rid of these controversies by sourcing them even if it doesn't suit my POV.
 * Ericd 21:41, 7 Oct 2004 (UTC)

title: Wikipedia:Requests for comment/TDC


text:
Dry Tortugas National Park

Dry Tortugas National Park is an American national park located about 68 mi west of Key West in the Gulf of Mexico, in the United States. The park preserves Fort Jefferson and the several Dry Tortugas islands, the westernmost and most isolated of the Florida Keys. The archipelago's coral reefs are the least disturbed of the Florida Keys reefs.

The park is noted for abundant sea life, tropical bird breeding grounds, colorful coral reefs, and shipwrecks and sunken treasures. The park's centerpiece is Fort Jefferson, a massive but unfinished coastal fortress. Fort Jefferson is the largest brick masonry structure in the Western Hemisphere, composed of more than 16 million bricks. Dry Tortugas is unique in its combination of a largely undisturbed tropical ecosystem with significant historic artifacts. The park is accessible only by seaplane or boat and has averaged about 63,000 visitors annually in the period from 2008 to 2017. Activities include snorkeling, picnicking, birdwatching, camping, scuba diving, saltwater fishing and kayaking. Overnight camping is limited to eight primitive campsites at the Garden Key campground, located just south of Fort Jefferson.

Dry Tortugas National Park is part of the Everglades & Dry Tortugas Biosphere Reserve, established by UNESCO in 1976 under its Man and the Biosphere Programme.

Geography
The Dry Tortugas are a small archipelago of coral islands about 70 mi west of Key West, Florida. They represent the westernmost extent of the Florida Keys, though several reefs and submarine banks continue westward outside the park, beyond the Tortugas.

The park area is more than 99 percent water. The northern and western portions of the park, including the central island group, were designated a 46 sqmi research natural area in 2007, in which no marine life may be taken, nor may vessels anchor. Vessels wishing to moor in this area must use designated mooring buoys or docks. About 54 percent of the park remains open for fishing. The park is bordered on the east, south and west by the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary, and on the northwest by the Tortugas Ecological Reserve.

The keys are low and irregular. Some have thin growths of mangroves, and various other vegetation, while the smallest have only small patches of grass, or no plant life. There are nominally seven islands, but there have been up to eleven during the past two centuries. The islands are continually changing in size and shape, and the number of distinct landmasses varies, as changing water levels expose and cover the lower islands and sandy land bridges between some of the islands. Some of the smaller islands have disappeared and reappeared multiple times as a result of hurricane impact. The major islands within the park are, roughly from west to east, Loggerhead Key, Garden Key, Bush Key, Long Key, Hospital Key, Middle Key, and East Key. The total land area within the park varies with water level. The total land area is about 144 acre.

 * Aerial view of Loggerhead Key, Dry Tortugas (8473755888).jpgLoggerhead Key, 250 by 1200 m in size, with an area of 26 hectare is the largest. This island has the highest elevation in the Dry Tortugas, at 10 ft. The Dry Tortugas lighthouse, 46 m high, is on this island.

 * Garden Key, with Fort Jefferson and the inactive Garden Key lighthouse (20 m). It is 4 km east of Loggerhead Key. Garden Key is the second largest island in the chain, at 400 by 500 m in size, with an area of 17 hectare. The original size, before construction of Fort Jefferson, has been estimated at 30,350 to 35,610 m2.

 * Bush_Long_Key.jpgBush Key, formerly named Hog Island because of the hogs that were raised there to provide fresh meat for the prisoners at Fort Jefferson, just a few meters east of Garden Key. At times, Bush Key is connected to Garden Key by a sand bar. The island is the third largest, 150 by 900 m, area 12 hectare, less than 1 m high. Bush Key is the site of a large tern rookery. It is closed to visitors from February to September to protect nesting sooty terns and brown noddys.
 * Long Key, 59 m south of the eastern end of Bush Key, 50 by 200 m in size, area of 8,000 m2. At times it is connected to Bush Key by a sandbar.
 * Hospital Key, so called because a hospital for the inmates of Fort Jefferson had been built there in the 1870s. The island was formerly called Middle Key or Sand Key. It lies 2.5 km northeast of Garden Key and Bush Key, 70 m. Its area is 4,000 m2, and it is 1 m above sea level at its highest point.
 * Middle Key, 2.5 km east of Hospital key, 90 m, area 6,000 m2. Due to various seasonal changes, storm patterns and tidal cycles it is not always above sea level, disappearing for weeks or months, only to reappear again.
 * East Key, 2 km east of Middle Key, 100 by 200 m, area 1.6 hectare, over 2 m high.

The three westernmost keys, which are also the three largest keys (Loggerhead Key, Garden Key, and Bush Key), make up about 93 percent of the total land area of the group.

Former islands
Formerly existing keys were (from west to east):

 * Southwest Key, disappeared by 1875, today a shoal south off of Loggerhead Reef.
 * Bird Key (formerly Booby Key), was about 1.5 km southwest of Garden Key, disappeared in 1935. Current names in the area are Bird Key Bank and Bird Key Harbor. The Key was the site of numerous Union soldiers' graves during the Civil War.
 * North Key, probably identical with former Booby Island, current name in the area is North Key Harbor, an anchorage WSW of Pulaski Shoal, disappeared by 1875.
 * Northeast Key (earlier called Sand Key), was between East Key and North Key, slightly to the North, disappeared by 1875.

Shoals with lights

 * Pulaski Shoal (Pulaski Reef), marking the northeast edge of the group at 24.69333°N, -82.77333°W, is not an island, but the former location of the Pulaski Shoal Light.
 * Iowa Rock, halfway between Garden Key and Hospital Key, is another site of a navigational light (and weather station) built in shallow water. It was destroyed by Hurricane Hugo, with three bare stumps left.

Geology
The Dry Tortugas are the western extension of an arcuate chain of Pleistocene reef and oolitic limestone islands, with the eastern limit in the vicinity of Miami. These Florida Keys are the surface expression of the 3.7 mi thick southern Florida carbonate platform, which has been accumulating sediments since the Early Cretaceous. Two stratigraphic units are exposed at the surface, the Key Largo Limestone and the Miami Limestone. The Key Largo Limestone are reefs up to 200 ft (61 m) thick, parallel to the shelf edge, consisting of hermatypic corals and calcarenites. The Miami Limestone is less than 49 ft (15 m) thick, and in general, is found behind the Key Largo Limestone reef, but overlies it in the western extent of the keys. It consists of a bryozoan facies and an oolitic facies and represents a subtidal shoal. Additionally, excellent examples of Holocene carbonate-sand deposits are found in the Dry Tortugas, consisting mainly of disarticulated Halimeda plates. Between the Dry Tortugas and Key West is a 39 ft (12 m) thick example of these sand deposits, known as "the quicksands".

Climate
Dry Tortugas has a tropical savanna climate (Aw), with a rainy season coinciding with the Atlantic hurricane season from May to October and a dry season extending from November through April. Despite occasional exposure to tropical systems, the Dry Tortugas is the driest place in Florida with an annual precipitation of about 38 in. There is no large jungle or forest canopy area on the islands, and the sandy soil (which drains quickly) and intense sun only enhance the drought-like conditions often found on the islands. Seasonally there is little temperature variation, with high temperatures in summer around 91 F and low temperatures in winter around 65 F. Like the rest of the lower keys, there has never been a recorded frost or freeze. The hardiness zone is 12a, with an annual mean minimum temperature of 52 °F.

History
The first European to see the Dry Tortugas was Juan Ponce de León, who visited on June 21, 1513. Ponce de León caught 160 sea turtles there and subsequently referred to the islands as the "Tortugas" (turtles). They are called Dry owing to the absence of surface fresh water on the island. The name is the second oldest surviving European place-name in the US.

The archipelago includes a high concentration of historically significant shipwrecks dating from the 17th century to the present. In 1742 HMS Tyger wrecked in the Dry Tortugas. The stranded crew lived on Garden Key for 56 days, and fought a battle with a Spanish sloop, before sailing to Jamaica in several boats.

Florida was acquired from Spain by the United States in 1819. The Dry Tortugas were seen as a strategic point for the control of the Straits of Florida and the Gulf of Mexico. Work on a lighthouse on Garden Key started in 1825. In 1856 work on a new, more powerful lighthouse on Loggerhead Key was started to replace the Garden Key light.

John James Audubon visited the Tortugas in 1832 and so did Louis Agassiz in 1858.

The Dry Tortugas are also rich in maritime history. In 1989 Seahawk Deep Ocean Technology explored a shipwreck believed to be part of the 1622 Spanish treasure fleet. The wreck located in 1332 ft of water, yielded olive jars, copper, gold, silver, glass and other cultural artifacts. On September 6, 1622, the Nuestra Señora de Atocha was driven by a severe hurricane onto a coral reef near the Dry Tortugas, about 35 mi west of Key West. Mel Fisher and his company discovered the wreck July 20, 1985. The estimated $450 million cache recovered, known as "The Atocha Motherlode," included 40 tons of gold and silver; there were some 114,000 of the Spanish silver coins known as pieces of eight, gold coins, Colombian emeralds, gold and silver artifacts, and 1,000 silver ingots. In addition to the Atocha, Fisher's company, Salvors Inc., found remains of several nearby shipwrecks, including the Atocha's sister galleon the Santa Margarita, lost in the same year, and the remains of a slave ship known as the Henrietta Marie, lost in 1700.

Fort Jefferson
Fort Jefferson is a massive but unfinished coastal fortress. It is the largest masonry structure in the Western Hemisphere, and is composed of more than 16 million bricks.

Planning for a fortification began almost immediately after American acquisition, and construction started in 1847. Work was half complete in 1860. Workers consisted mostly of enslaved people hired from their owners in Key West and other parts of the State of Florida. Some White laborers, mostly Irish immigrants were also employed. The use of enslaved labor was discontinued in 1863. This bastion remained in Union hands throughout the Civil War. It later was used as a prison until abandoned in 1874. Dr. Samuel Mudd, famous for being the doctor who treated John Wilkes Booth in the wake of the Lincoln assassination, was imprisoned here for conspiracy with three others until early 1869, when he was pardoned in 1869 after averting a viral outbreak. Also imprisoned was a leader of the "Chicago Conspiracy", Englishman George St. Leger Grenfell, who is supposed to have drowned having escaped in a small boat.

During the 1880s, the Navy established a base in the Dry Tortugas, and it subsequently set up a coaling (refueling) and a wireless (radio) station there as well. During World War I, a seaplane base was established in the islands, but it was abandoned soon thereafter.

From 1903 until 1939 the Carnegie Institution of Washington operated the Marine Biology Laboratory on Loggerhead Key which "...quickly became the best-equipped marine biological station in the tropical world." Through the years, over 150 researchers used the facilities to perform a wide range of research. In June 1911 the laboratory built a vessel in Miami, MV Anton Dohrn (1911), for use by researchers as well as logistics between the station and Key West. The vessel, excepting a period of World War I service with the Navy, supported the laboratory's work until closure in 1939 and donation of Anton Dohrn to the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution.

An account of a visit to the fort at the Dry Tortugas by President Franklin D. Roosevelt and Justice-to-be Robert H. Jackson can be found in Jackson's book That Man: An Insider's Portrait of Franklin D. Roosevelt.

The African-American Experience
Fort Jefferson was home to African Americans not only as enslaved persons but also as Union Soldiers, freedmen and prisoners. Starting in 1847, the United States Army Corps of Engineers hired enslaved laborers. Between 1847 and 1860, approximately 17% of Key West's enslaved people were leased to the Corp as laborers. The majority of the enslaved people working at Fort Jefferson were men, who were the base of the hard, unskilled workers. Some were also employed as domestic servants, boatmen and cooks. Enslaved women were also present. They did the wash and some cooking. After the Emancipation Proclamation, some freed African American men enlisted in the Union Army. The 82nd Colored Infantry was stationed at Fort Jefferson near the end of the Civil War. Between 1861 and 1871, there were African Americans held as military prisoners at the fort.

Park history
Comprising 47125 acre, Fort Jefferson National Monument was designated by President Franklin D. Roosevelt under the Antiquities Act on January 4, 1935. The monument was expanded in 1983 and redesignated as Dry Tortugas National Park on October 26, 1992, by an act of Congress. Dry Tortugas is managed by the staff of Everglades National Park. The park was established to protect the island and marine ecosystems of the Dry Tortugas, to preserve Fort Jefferson and submerged cultural resources such as shipwrecks, and to allow for public access in a regulated manner.

During the United States federal government shutdowns of 1995–1996, Dry Tortugas was closed along with all other national parks. Seeing this as having a damaging effect on their tourism-dependent economy, the residents of Key West, Florida, raised money to keep Dry Tortugas open. The effort was inspired by the Smithsonian Institution, which raised private donations to keep its museums open during the shutdown.

Failing to find anybody to accept the money to reopen the park, Key West residents, under the auspices of the satirical micronation Conch Republic, sent a flotilla of civilian boats and fire department boats to Fort Jefferson in order to reopen the national park. When officials attempted to enter the fort, they were cited. The citation was contested in court the following year, and the resultant case, The United States of America v. Peter Anderson, was quickly dropped.

The park is a landing location for immigrants arriving from Cuba in homebuilt boats called "chugs". Receiving and housing the migrants is a particular problem for Dry Tortugas, which has limited resources for such arrivals and which is several hours from the nearest Coast Guard or Border Patrol units. Communications with Key West are accomplished using a satellite-based voice-over-IP system, which is prone to garbling and delays, and by a radio relay system using an abandoned Air Force tower between Key West and the Dry Tortugas.

Visitation steadily rose for several decades, reaching a peak of 83,704 in 2000. Since then visitation has slowly declined, with an average of about 63,000 per year in the period from 2007 to 2016.

In August 2004, the Dry Tortugas were directly struck by Hurricane Charley. The following day, a Cessna airplane crashed into the water near the islands, killing cinematographer Neal Fredericks while he was filming scenery for the feature film CrossBones. In September 2022, the islands were again directly struck by Hurricane Ian.

Ecology
The Dry Tortugas archipelago is classified as a borderline subtropicaltropical ecosystem, hosting species that do not normally breed in, and are not commonly found anywhere else within, the continental United States or the islands and waters surrounding it.

When the cold wave of January 1977 wiped out 96 percent of branching coral, once extensive branching coral formations became rubble fields. The Dry Tortugas National Park now consists of patch reef and branching coral rubble.

Birds
Dry Tortugas National Park has an official bird list of 299 species. Of these, only eight species frequently nest within the park: sooty tern, brown noddy, brown pelican, magnificent frigatebird, masked booby, roseate tern, bridled tern and mourning dove. The park features the only nesting colonies of sooty tern, brown noddy, magnificent frigatebird, and masked booby in the contiguous United States.

Birdwatching activity peaks each spring (usually April) when dozens of migratory bird species can pass through the park in a single day. Many birds land inside the parade grounds of Fort Jefferson where they are often observed at close range. Common migratory warblers include the northern parula, American redstart, prairie warbler, hooded warbler, palm warbler, black-and-white warbler, common yellowthroat, yellow-rumped warbler, ovenbird, northern waterthrush, black-throated blue warbler, blackpoll warbler, and Cape May warbler, with more than 20 additional warbler species having shown up at least once. Several raptor species are often seen hunting songbirds. Until early 2013 a small freshwater fountain existed beneath several seaside mahoe and buttonwood trees, and was the only freshwater source for many miles. Maintenance issues necessitated its removal, but a replacement water barrel is scheduled for installation in the fall of 2013. Each year several bird guides offer tours of Dry Tortugas National Park during April and early May when daily bird lists can often reach 100 or more species.

Invasive species and eradication efforts
An active eradication program has resulted in the removal of invasive Casuarina trees and agave from Loggerhead Key, by cutting and herbicide treatment. Pterois, commonly known as lionfish, have also been found in the park's waters and the National Park Service was reviewing (in 2015) the lionfish management plan to determine what actions to take to manage the spread of this invasive species in Dry Tortugas National Park and Everglades National Park.

Visiting

Most visitors arrive in Dry Tortugas National Park by either boat or seaplane from Key West. Official ferry and transportation services to the Dry Tortugas include the Yankee Freedom III catamaran, private vessel chartering and seaplane services. Other methods of visiting the Dry Tortugas include chartering of authorized and approved private vessels. There are no road connections to Dry Tortugas, and cars cannot access the islands.

Inside Dry Tortugas National Park the goods and services are limited. Visitors are required to bring the food, water and supplies they might need during their time in the park. The closest restaurants and hotels are located in Key West. However, primitive camping sites are available within Dry Tortugas on Garden Key.

title: Dry Tortugas National Park