Painted Lady Butterfly Beauty
by Karen Adams
Title
Painted Lady Butterfly Beauty
Artist
Karen Adams
Medium
Photograph - Fine Art Digital Prints - Photography
Description
This is a very similar image to Painted Lady Butterfly in Green Field, probably clicked just a few seconds later, but I liked the slight change in lighting with this one, and so, I have included both images here.
It was late afternoon in August in my Ohio garden and I had several Monarchs 'hanging' around my backyard for a couple of weeks, so when I saw the flash of orange I tried to not get excited too quickly! To my great joy though, I soon spotted that it was indeed a somewhat smaller butterfly, a Painted Lady! I really love these beauties and am seeing them much less often in recent years. This particular one was truly a gorgeous one!
I was able to get several shots of this beauty as 'she' balanced on a tall purple verbena flower. Each image seems to have its own personality and I have posted several from that brief 'photo-shoot' that ended all too soon!
This is a portrait of a Painted Lady butterfly(Vanessa cardui) and shows the ventral view of this butterfly. This butterfly is a member of the family: Nymphalidae and
Subfamily: Nymphalinae.
The upperside is orange-brown with darker wing bases. The forewing has a black apex patch and white bar on the leading edge, while the hindwing has a submarginal row of 5 small black spots sometimes with blue scales. The underside has a black, brown, and gray pattern with 4 small submarginal eyespots. This dorsal view shows you the upperside of the painted lady's wings.
It is not a big butterfly......with a wing span of just 2 - 2 7/8 inches (5.1 - 7.3 cm)
These butterflies are found almost everywhere, especially in open or disturbed areas including gardens, old fields, and dunes. Their range covers all continents except Australia and Antarctica. 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.
The Painted Lady is also known as the Thistle Butterfly because of the caterpillars' food preference and also as the Cosmopolitan because it is the most widely distributed butterfly in the world.
Thank you so much for looking at my images. I appreciate that very much.
I am very concerned with our environment and have decided to donate any money I make from any sales of this image to the ENVIRONMENTAL DEFENSE FUND.....because the Earth needs a good lawyer! We all need to speak up and support efforts to protect our environment. We will not get a second chance!
**The watermark stamp will not appear on any purchased items. All images are protected by copyright law and cannot be reproduced in any form without the express written consent of the artist.**
Uploaded
September 28th, 2018
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Comments (5)
Latha Gokuldas Panicker
So fabulous image of this pretty flower and her friend,dear Karen !!!!!(F/L)
Deborah A Andreas
Beautiful photo with great DOF! I've never seen a Painted Lady Butterfly in my yard. I read your very informative description and will now buy some Thistle plants for next years garden to attract them. This year I had the pleasure of attracting the Monarch Butterflies with a Milkweed plant. The annual one, which the butterflies lay their eggs on it and when the caterpillars hatch, they have a meal waiting for them....they eat the whole plant up. I've seen their chrysalis and even saw one butterfly's first flight! F/L
Karen Adams replied:
Deborah, that is so exciting about your Monarch experience!! Check out Monarchwatch.org I had 12 Monarchs in my garden one afternoon this week! My grandchildren were in heaven!! Thanks so much for your comment.
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