Painted Lady Butterfly Gardens for North America’s Painted Ladies

Summary: Planned and wild painted lady butterfly gardens give homes, spring through fall, to North America’s painted ladies in Canada, Mexico and the United States.

undersides of painted lady butterfly (Vanessa cardui): Joaquim Alves Gaspar (Alvesgaspar), CC BY SA 4.0 International, via Wikimedia Commons

Painted lady butterflies are living up to their nickname, Cosmopolites, by showing up in painted lady butterfly gardens in January 2016, according to posted sightings by Butterfly Conservation of Dorset, United Kingdom.

Scientists base the common name painted lady upon the rose-washed, rouge-reminiscent forewings’ contrast with the black and orange-swirled, black-dotted, white-spotted uppers and the four-eyespotted, mottled undersides. The nicknames Cosmopolite and thistle butterfly come from the painted lady butterfly’s distribution range everywhere except Antarctica and preferences for thistle as egg and larval hostplants. Monarchs, painted ladies and red admirals deserve classifications as iconic North American butterflies since all three are intra-continental migrants of Canada, Mexico and the United States.

Painted lady butterflies exhibit recognizably, uniquely fast, strong, zigzagging flight patterns whereby they fly above and over obstacles instead of weaving around them like most butterflies.

Scientists find it easy to track low-altitude painted lady migrations north from wild painted lady butterfly gardens in the northern Mexican plateau every March and April.

Painted lady butterflies hold ecological classifications as sea level to timberline generalists of deserts, farmlands, fields, gardens, grasslands, meadows, parks, prairies, roadsides, scrublands, wastelands and wetlands. Color receptors for detecting blue, green, red and ultraviolet lights identify for painted lady butterflies diverse flowering plants and low-lying vegetation in disturbed and open habitats. The ability to sustain faster, stronger paces gets north-migrating painted lady butterflies to southern Canada before monarchs and to the Hudson Bay by June each year.

Migration-friendly, 2.2-inch (4.49-centimeter) wingspans join acceptance of more than 100 hostplants and adaptability to diverse open, sunny niches to explain painted lady survival throughout North America.

Life cycles and natural histories in planned and wild painted lady butterfly gardens keep painted ladies alive for 33 days to 2 1/2 months in North America.

Painted lady butterflies live 4 to 14 days as delicately blue to green, ridged eggs deposited one at a time on the upper sides of leaves. They may spend 14 days to 4 weeks as black, pale-haired, spiny caterpillars that operate from homespun, loose, silken white nests anytime between March and November. They need 7 days to 2 weeks for pupal stages as tan-colored chrysalises covered with shining gold spots and camouflaged as twisted twigs hanging from branches.

Maturity offers adult painted lady butterflies 8 days to 3 weeks to locate egg hostplants, mate, nectar and shelter from bad weather under bark and logs.

Painted ladies prefer planned and wild painted lady butterfly gardens filled with borage, burdock, groundsel, hollyhocks, lamb’s quarters, pearly everlasting, red clover, sunflowers, thistle and wormwood.

Aster, black-eyed Susan, blazing star, coneflower, cosmos, goldenrod, goosefoot, ironweed, Joe-Pye weed, lupine, mallow, milkweed and tall verbena qualify as particular flowering favorites of painted ladies. Painted ladies rarely resort to shrubs, trees and vines even though they make exceptions in nectaring on buttonbush and sheltering on American elm and black cherry. They seek out legumes and strive to avoid predatory birds, carpenter ants, chipmunks, dragonflies, fireflies, frogs, hornets, praying mantises, shrews, skinks, snakes, spiders, squirrels and turtles.

Painted ladies take their places alongside their fellow North American icons, monarchs and red admirals, in being people-friendly enough to land on hat brims and shoulders.

The painted lady butterfly (Vanessa cardui), also known as cosmopolitan in North America, is found on every continent except Antarctica and South America: BC Dorset @BC_Dorset, via Twitter Jan. 7, 2016

Acknowledgment

My special thanks to talented artists and photographers/concerned organizations who make their fine images available on the internet.

Image credits:

undersides of painted lady butterfly (Vanessa cardui): Joaquim Alves Gaspar (Alvesgaspar), CC BY SA 4.0 International, via Wikimedia Commons @ https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Butterfly_August_2008-3.jpg

The painted lady butterfly (Vanessa cardui), also known as cosmopolitan in North America, is found on every continent except Antarctica and South America: BC Dorset @BC_Dorset, via Twitter Jan. 7, 2016, @ https://twitter.com/BC_Dorset/status/685174912261177344

For further information:

BC Dorset @BC_Dorset. 7 January 2016. "Mild winds bring moths & first #Dorset butterfly of 2016; Painted Lady on the 3rd January!" Twitter.
Available @ https://twitter.com/BC_Dorset/status/685174912261177344

Butterfly Conservation. "Painted Lady Butterfly." YouTube. June 12, 2015.
Available @ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iNKcwJtegxg

“First Butterfly Sightings 2016.” Butterfly Conservation > Butterflies and moths.
Available @ http://butterfly-conservation.org/52/first-butterfly-sightings-2016.html

"The 2012 USDA Plant Hardiness Zone Map." The National Gardening Association > Gardening Tools > Learning Library USDA Hardiness Zone > USDA Plant Hardiness Zone Map.
Available @ https://garden.org/nga/zipzone/2012/