Subject: Florida Atala

From: [email-masked] (Dan Sorensen)
Date: Thu, 25 May 1995 03:02:23 GMT

During a recent trip to Florida, I was visiting the Fairchild Tropical 
Gardens.  I saw a pretty little butterfly that held still long enough for 
me to get its picture.  At home I was able to identify it as a Florida 
Atala, Eumaeus atala florida.  The book I used is rather old and it says 
that this once common butterfly has become rare, perhaps extinct.  My 
question is has this species recovered or did I see something quite unusual?
I'm not a collector, but I do appreciate the beauty when I get to see it.
Thanks for any help.

Dan Sorensen   Russell, PA
[email-masked]
[email-masked]

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From: [email-masked] (Doug Yanega)
Date: 25 May 1995 19:54:30 GMT

In article <[email-masked]>, [email-masked]

> I'm not a collector, but I do appreciate the beauty when I get to see it.

I have a nice T-shirt depicting this species, which has indeed made
something of a comeback in Florida; the apparent reason, ironically, is
people deciding that cycads in the genus Zamia were nice ornamental
plants, and proliferating them. This is the host plant of E. atala (it's
too toxic for most anything else, actually - the butterflies are likewise
well-protected by toxins, which is ostensibly why they are so easy to
photograph or capture), and so as the host plant population burgeoned, the
butterflies made a comeback. We should be so lucky with every endangered
species! Anyway, the one part of the story I'm not quite clear on is
whether the present-day population is based on a resident
nearly-extirpated population of the native Floridian subspecies, or
colonists from the Caribbean subspecies.
-- 
Doug Yanega
Illinois Natural History Survey, Center for Biodiversity
607 E. Peabody Dr. Champaign, IL 61820  USA
"There are some enterprises in which a careful disorderliness is
    the true method" - Herman Melville, Moby Dick

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From: Bart Vanholder <[email-masked]>
Date: 27 May 1995 07:45:56 GMT

> I'm not a collector, but I do appreciate the beauty when I get to see it.

I had quite the same experiences in 1990 during my holiday in Florida.
On 16 th november we visited Fairchild's Tropical Gardens and I found there
as well 4 (1 female, 3 males) E. atala. So the colony has to be there for at 
least 4 years now. It is pleasant to see that they are still there.
In those days I also thought that it was a very scarce butterfly in 
Florida.

[email-masked]
Bart Vanholder

Droeskouter 33
B-9450 Haaltert
Belgium