Vanessa cardui, Pennsylvania, courtesy of Leroy Simon.
Superfamily: Papilionoidea Latreille, [1802] | Website designed and maintained |
From the deserts of northern Mexico, the Painted Lady migrates and temporarily colonizes the United States and Canada south of the Arctic. Occasionally, population explosions in Mexico will cause massive northward migrations.
There are populations on the Hawaiian Islands.
Vanessa cardui, Peterborough, Ontario, October 13, 2004, courtesy of Tim Dyson copyright.
The underside has a black, brown, and gray pattern with five small submarginal eyespots on the hindwing.The orange area of the dorsal forewing is mapped onto the underside, but is frequently hidden by the hindwing while the butterfly perches. Image from Johnson Ridge, Mt. Baker Snoqualmie National Forest, Snohomish County, WAshington, 7.8.2001, Photo © Markku Savela |  |
This species broods continuously where climate/weather permits.
The Painted Lady prefers nectar from composites 3-6 feet high, especially thistles. It is regaulary seen on asters, cosmos, blazing star, ironweed, and joe-pye weed. Flowers from other families that are visited include red clover, buttonbush, privet and milkweeds.
Eggs, Larvae, Pupae:Males perch and patrol during the afternoon, looking for receptive females. In the West, males usually perch on shrubs on hilltops, while in the East males perch on bare ground in open areas.Females lay finely reticulated, green, barrel-shaped eggs singly on the tops of many host plant leaves. |  |
More than one hundred larval host plants have been noted, but favorites include thistles (Asteraceae), hollyhock and mallow (Malvaceae), and various legumes (Fabaceae).
The caterpillars live in silk nests and eat foliage.It was not difficult to find them in open fields on thistle in Pottersville, New Jersey. Their silk nests, often near the top of the plant, or at the juncture of leaf and stalk, were often messy with frass. The color of the larva varies from chartreuse with black marbling to a purple with a yellow hue. |
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Vanessa cardui, courtesy of
Jeffrey C. Miller,
Forest Health Technology Enterprise Team.
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At maturity, larvae fasten their anal claspers via a silk pad to suitable strata, often the undersides of leaves.The caterpillar then hangs in a "j-shape" and sheds its skin one last time to form the angular pupa or chrysalis. Nine to fourteen days later the adult butterfly emerges. Adults hibernate only in the South and can only survive mild winters. Here on Prince Edward Island in eastern Canada, I only see the butterflies in late summer, probably at the northern end of their eastern migration. |
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