American lady
The American lady is an orange and black butterfly with white spots near its wing tips. Turn it over and you can see two big eye spots on the underside of its back wings. It is a close cousin of the painted lady.
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Fun facts
The easiest way to tell it from the painted lady is the two big eye spots under its back wings. The painted lady has four small ones.
It has a small white dot in the orange part of its front wing.
Some of the eye spots on top of its back wings have little blue centres.
Now and then one flies all the way to southwest Europe.
It was once called Hunter's butterfly.
Most asked questions about American lady
?How can you tell an American lady from a painted lady?
Look under the back wings: the American lady has two big eye spots, while the painted lady has four small ones.
?How big is the American lady?
Its wings are about 5 centimetres from tip to tip.
?What does the American lady caterpillar eat?
Soft, fuzzy plants like cudweeds, pussytoes and everlastings.
For bug experts
- Scientific name
- Vanessa virginiensis
- Group
- Butterflies
- Family
- Nymphalidae
- Classification
- Insecta > Lepidoptera > Nymphalidae
- Lives on
- North America, Europe, Australia and Oceania
- Also known as
- American painted lady
Where the facts come from
- American lady (Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0): what it looks like, where it lives, what it eats, sizes and fun facts, retold in simple words.
- Picture by Rhododendrites. CC BY-SA 4.0, Wikimedia Commons. The round sticker of this bug is cut from the same picture.
If we got something wrong, sorry, we are bug fans, not a science journal. Tell us at hello@bugwiki.app and we will fix it.
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