Vanessa cardui
painted lady butterfly
(Also: painted lady)

The Painted Lady is found everywhere in the world except South America, the Arctic, and Australia.

The Painted Lady is found almost anywhere, but they tend to inhabit brightly lighted and open environments. They prefer clover fields, flowery meadows and hilly country. Marshes, dunes, and thorn scrubs also attract the Painted Lady.

The Painted Lady has a pointed forewing which bears a distinct white bar. The hindwing has a submarginal row of 5 tiny black dots. The upperside of the freshly emerged butterfly is orange with rose-like overtones. The underside is a mottled gray, brown, and black.

Females lay eggs on the plants their babies will eat. The caterpillars that hatch out feed continuously and molt several times. After a few weeks they transform into a pupa, go through a complete metamorphosis, and emerge as an adult butterfly. The timing of this depends on the climate, the warmer it is the faster they grow.

Lifespan depends on the climate, but is probably never more than one winter. Only adults survive through winter, and even then only in mild climates.

The Painted Lady is well known for its migratory behavior. It is continuously brooded and does not disperse. Adult males will perch in the late afternoon to establish and defend a territory. However, a male does not selectively perch on species of plants that serve as larval hosts. Almost always males win exclusive use of their defended areas.

The Painted lady consumes more than 100 different plants, some include thistles, Burdock, and Groundsel. The Larval foodplants are thistles and members of the families Asteraceae and Malvaceae.

Adult painted ladies' main defenses are flight and camouflage. The caterpillars hide in small silk nests on top of leaves, and may have chemical defenses, but this is uncertain.

These are such common butterflies that they need no special conservation efforts.

The Painted Lady is also known as the Thistle Butterfly because of its strong liking for thistles, and the Cosmopolitan for its worldwide distribution.