Florida State Collection
of Arthropods - link to main FSCA site

The State of Florida insect collection, known as the Florida State Collection of Arthropods (FSCA), is the accumulation of specimens started in 1915 with the old State Plant Board, then expanded after 1953, and now holds over 8.3 million specimens of pinned and preserved insects, spiders, and related arthropods from all over the world, housed in over 18,000 insect drawers. Collections are especially from Florida and the United States, and from other subtropical and tropical regions. The FSCA is instrumental in allowing State entomologists to be able to quickly identify insect pests and newly introduced species from other countries, in order to protect Florida agriculture and households from unwanted insect pests. The FSCA also allows continual monitoring of endangered Florida insects, as a repository of past distributions and vouchers of current populations.

Moths and butterflies (Lepidoptera), the main plant feeding group of insects, total about 1.8 million specimens at the FSCA, with over 200,000 of these as preserved larvae in alcohol. The world class Lepidoptera collection at FSCA holds examples of over 31,000 species of the world's total lepidopteran fauna, estimated to total 156,000 described species. FSCA continually seeks to obtain more of the tropical species worldwide as reference specimens for the collections, since that is where most of the new insect introductions come from that enter Florida every year, particularly from Southeast Asia, Latin America, and West Africa.

The McGuire Center for Lepidoptera Research, part of the Florida Museum of Natural History on the campus of the University of Florida, includes a new research facility for Lepidoptera studies with over 42,000 square feet of laboratories and museum space for collections, and enough space for up to 94,000 insect drawers. The new museum includes a 6,000 square-ft teaching and research butterfly house open to the public to view live butterflies and moths.

All the State of Florida funded Lepidoptera collections, including the FSCA, the University of Florida, and the Allyn Museum of Entomology (from Sarasota), are to be brought together in the McGuire Center. The FSCA portion is about 60% of the combined collections at the McGuire Center, about 3 million Lepidoptera specimens. Many other specimens will then be added in the next few years, making the McGuire Center the second largest collection of Lepidoptera in the world, after the British Museum in London, England. Key leading faculty and researchers, state-of-the-art facilities and research equipment make the McGuire Center the premier research museum in the world for the study of all aspects of Lepidoptera and their biology.

Tours are available with advance arrangements. Please contact Charles Whitehill at 352-372-3505 x434 or via e-mail at William.Whitehill@freshfromflorida.com for more information.