Well, in honor of full disclosure, the Atalas and Malachites are pretty much only South Florida butterflies. On Facebook, there was a guy in Pinellas County (St. Pete, across the bay from me) that claimed he had Atalas on his coontie, but I don't believe it unless I see it. The Atalas and Malachites were purchased from a butterfly farm, I believe and we've just kept them going by breeding them all year long. Julias will come up a bit further into Central Florida, but I've never seen one in the wild. We still have a pretty good variety, but I just wanted to make it clear that I don't actually get all those at my house.
It is nice to have the showier butterflies, but it's kind of messed up my usual speech at MOSI. The museum's mission statement is, "Making science real" and I used to be able to honestly tell people that I had seen every species of butterfly in the flight cage at my house at one time or another. Now, I have to add my little caveats. They're still all native Florida butterflies, though so that's good. Not to knock other butterfly houses that order in the tropical butterflies, but I kind of like that we have a mostly do-it-yourself approach. It still amazes me how many guests ask where we get the butterflies from and I have to explain my caterpillar hunts through the garden. They mostly assume we order them and it makes me sad that everything (even living species) can be seen as commodities.
I'll step off my soapbox now...
