Article Outline Development of the Everglades. Saving the Everglades. The Everglades extend from Lake Okeechobee to Florida Bay and the Gulf of Mexico. Bustic, gumbo limbo, live oak, mastic, and royal palm trees grow on mounds of higher land called tree islands. Near the southern coast, the Everglades become salt marshes and mangrove swamps, where the spreading roots of mangrove trees catch and hold soil.
Many animals live in the Everglades.
They include alligators, deer, fish, herons, pelicans, snakes, and the rare Florida panther. Development of the Everglades. The Everglades were created about 10,000 years ago, after the last major ice sheet of the Pleistocene Ice Age melted. The melting ice raised the level of the sea, which flooded the outlets of Everglades streams and turned the area into a swamp. Various peoples have lived in the Everglades through the centuries.