Lake Wales Ridge National Wildlife Refuge protects one of central Florida’s most distinctive remnants of Florida scrub on four tracts along the Lake Wales Ridge east of U.S. 27 between Davenport and Sebring. Established in 1990 and covering 1,194 acres, it became the first national wildlife refuge created primarily to preserve endangered plants. Its unusual botanical importance is matched by rare animals that depend on this fragmented habitat, including the Florida scrub jay, eastern indigo snake, bluetail mole skink, and sand skink, as well as endemic invertebrates. Closed to the general public, the refuge preserves species that survive almost nowhere else.