Vanessa cardui
Painted Lady ( Vanessa cardui )
The Painted Lady ( Vanessa cardui; Syn: Cynthia cardui ) is ( Nymphalidae ) is a butterfly of the family Nymphalidae.
- 3.1 Flight times and caterpillars
- 3.2 food of the caterpillars
- 3.3 Development
- 4.1 Notes and references
- 4.2 Literature
Features
The moths reach a wingspan of 45 to 60 millimeters. The tips of the forewings are similar to those of the admiral, they are also colored black bear and several large and small white spots. But the root field or the inner part of the wing has a orange and black spotted drawing. The wing root is colored yellow-brown. The hind wings are yellow-brown at the base and also have an extensive, the drawing of the front wings resembling pattern, the black spots are colored but only as of the wing outer edge, the other spots are pale. The underside of the hind wing is white and mottled in various shades of brown and bears on the outer edge five different sized ocelli. The underside of the forewing as colored top, but much paler. At the leading edge of two large bright spots are visible next to it. The black of the wing tips is partly mixed with shades of brown and the wing base down can be colored orange red in direction.
The caterpillars are about 40 mm long and have on each segment a spike ring with him branching out thorns. Their bright yellow to green-brown body ground color is dominated by a fine, dark variable pattern. The back and / or the segment rings between the spines are usually yellow in color with more, the base of the spines is usually reddish. But there are also very bright caterpillars, which have much white in their coloring.
Similar Species
- American Painted Lady ( Vanessa virginiensis )
- Admiral (Vanessa atalanta )
- Red Admiral (Vanessa vulcania )
Synonyms
- Cynthia cardui
- Papilio cardui
- Pyrameis cardui
Occurrence
Painted Lady butterflies are hiking and come across Europe, North Africa, Asia, North America and Australia to an altitude of about 3,000 meters before. Your home area, however, lies in the subtropical steppe areas. In Europe they are permanently down to earth only in the hot Mediterranean areas; in the rest of southern Europe needs the kind several consecutive years to temporarily be down to earth with good conditions. They live in dry terrain, such as dry grass, but can be found almost everywhere in large numbers, where thistles grow.
During their migrations, the moths can travel long distances, allowing themselves to be borne by the wind. Thus they reach even the far north of Europe. In the newly populated areas they multiply sometimes even several times; but the descendants migrate again in favorable areas for them because they can not survive low temperatures in winter. Many animals make their way over the Alps but not in time and die. One can then find a greater number of dead thistle butterflies glaciers sometimes.
Way of life
The moths are often found when sucking on thistle flower and butterfly bush ( Buddleja davidii ).
Flight times and caterpillars
In their areas of origin they come throughout the year without diapause before and form a generation after the other from. In Europe, the moths fly from May to July a. They then form depending on the climate of up to two generations, flying from July to August and from September to October. The caterpillars of the first newly educated generation can be found from June to July, the second from August to September.
Food of the caterpillars
The caterpillars feed on depending on populated areas by a variety of different plant families. In Europe they prefer above all cucurbits ( Cucurbitaceae ), Daisy Family ( Asteraceae), legume ( Fabaceae ), grapevine family ( Vitaceae ), (Malvaceae ), cruciferous plants ( Brassicaceae) and Borage Family ( Boraginaceae ). But you prefer especially Spear Thistle ( Cirsium vulgare), Cabbage thistle ( Cirsium oleraceum ) and other thistles and ring thistles ( Carduus spp.). They can be found for example on Big nettle (Urtica dioica) and Musk Mallow ( Malva moschata).
Development
The females lay their cone-shaped, greyish and longitudinally grooved eggs singly on the upper leaf surface of forage crops. Here, the animals set horizontally from the top of the plant and place the egg onto a sheet is located below, to which they thrust out the abdomen. The resulting hatching caterpillars spin the blade tip, and later the entire sheet together so that they can eat only. When nettles they spin a web between leaf growth and stem.