In this short video by Into Nature Films, Florida Museum South Florida Archaeology Curator Emeritus William Marquardt describes the Calusa ivory-billed woodpecker painting displayed in the Museum’s “South Florida People & Environments” exhibit and tells the Seminole parable of the woodpecker as a trickster.

The painted plaque was discovered on Marco Island in 1896 by Smithsonian archaeologist Frank Cushing in a muck site that had preserved wood and other objects that would normally rot away. Learn more about the Plaque with Painted Woodpecker on our online exhibit, Rare, Beautiful & Fascinating.