Painted Lady (Vanessa cardui)

Painted Ladies are common throughout the West and they, along with American Ladies (Vanessa virginiensis) are regular visitors to our garden, especially to the Lavender Butterfly bush off of our front portico. In some years, especially after wet winters, there are massive migrations of these butterflies through the California deserts. In spring of 2005, millions of painted ladies came through Southern California, forcing motorists to pull off to the side of the road to clean their cars of all the splatted ladies that met their unfortunate demise on the windshields. We drove through Barstow in April of that year and had to exit the freeway after our windshield was almost completely obscured by butterfly matter. The line to get into the nearest gas station was so long with similarly bespattered cars that it took us almost 30 minutes before we were able to reach one of their complimentary buckets of windshield wiper cleaner and a squeegee. If they were charging for this stuff, they would have made a fortune that crazy spring. 

9/22/13 On the Butterfly Bush (Buddleia davidii) off of our front portico. 

10/29/16 Same butterfly bush, different Painted Lady, 3 years later.

3/15/19 On Chaenactis carphoclinia, Desert Lily Sanctuary, Desert Center,
Chuckwalla Valley, E. Riverside County, CA

NOTE: Painted Ladies have four submarginal small eyespots on the below hindwing, 

while American Ladies have two large eyespots.

LIFE LIST NOTES:

COMMON NAME: Painted Lady

SPECIES: Vanessa cardui

FAMILY: Nymphalidae (Brush-Footed Butterflies)

RANGE: Most habitats in the U.S., Canada & Mexico.

LIFE LIST DATE: 9/22/2013

LOCATION: On the Lavender Butterfly Bush off of our front portico, La Cresta, Murrieta, SW Riverside County, CA