Beautiful Painted Lady

by Robert Bales

Title

Beautiful Painted Lady

Artist

Robert Bales

Medium

Photograph - Photo

Description

I found this painted Lady flying around our Mexican Honeysuckle plant the other day and I followed it for several minutes trying to get a nice photos. These are very common in this area and they well migrate to the North every Spring though the Southwest.

In general, the Painted Lady is a large butterfly (wing span 59 cm (2.03.5 in)) identified by the black and white corners of its mainly deep orange, black-spotted wings. It has 5 white spots in the black forewing tips and while the orange areas may be pale here and there, there are no clean white dots in them. The hindwings carry 4 small submarginal eyespots on dorsal and ventral sides. Those on the dorsal side are black, but in the summer morph sometimes small blue pupils are present in some.
The Painted Lady may be the most widespread butterfly in the world. It also known as the thistle butterfly and the cosmopolitan (because it is so widespread, occurring in North and South America, Europe, Asia and Africa). This flying insect lives in temperate and some tropical areas.

Uploaded

November 10th, 2014

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