The Painted Lady: here, there, and everywhere

About the middle of May when the wild plum trees in my yard blossomed with sweet-smelling white flowers, I saw the first wave of Painted Lady butterflies arrive. They looked a little travel-worn, their colors faded and wings frayed on the edges. I'm not sure how far they came to sip the plum blossom nectar, but Painted Ladies are not year round residents in most of the United States. In about February some of them hatch out in their home territory of Northern Mexico, and fly north. They migrate into areas where plants have started growing and flowers blooming again after the cold winter season.

The life cycle of a Painted Lady (Vanessa cardui) goes through the usual stages: 1) from the egg, 2) to a caterpillar that grows through four skin molting stages (instars), 3) to the chrysallis (pupa), 4) to a butterfly. Before the adult butterflies die off, they lay eggs to start a new generation. Some of that new generation moves a little further north, and so on, throughout the spring and summer. At the peak of the summer season, Painted Ladies can be found clear up into northern Canada. Some years, only a few migrants make the trip north, but other years, mass migrations take to the skies out of Mexico.

The caterpillars especially like to eat thistles, and Painted Ladies are sometimes called Thistle Butterflies, but they can eat a wide variety of plants. Adult butterflies also feed on many different flowers. This adaptability is probably one of the reasons Painted Ladies are found on every continent except Antarctica and Australia. Since they live in so many places, they have another nickname - the Cosmopolitan Butterfly.

Last week in the article about an Old World Swallowtail, I explained how important identifying marks are if you want to learn a butterfly's name. When freshly hatched, the wings of a Painted Lady are a lovely warm orange color with black patterned areas near the front tips that include white spots. On the hind wing is a row of five black spots along the submarginal edge (that's the second row of black spots from the white edge). This photograph shows a freshly hatched Painted Lady on a Bee Balm (Monarda) flower.

I saw quite a few Painted Ladies this summer. One day, I was weeding around a day lily plant that had some leaves bending over in an arch, their tips touching the ground. I noticed something hanging off the side of a leaf. Looking closer, I saw it was a Painted Lady with folded wings. It had two slender legs over the top of the arch to hold on. It was very still, so I guessed it was letting its wings dry after climbing out of a chrysallis. I went on with my gardening, but came back in about an hour and it was gone. I got down on the ground and peeked under the leaf. I was right - a delicate tan chrysallis was still attached to the underside of the leaf and it was empty.

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