Beautiful Butterflies! #4

Hi everyone! Welcome back to my series on butterflies! It has been quite a while since I last posted one of these, but hopefully I will keep it up more regularly again. Today we look at the Painted Lady Butterfly. It is said to be the most widespread butterfly in the world being found in North America, the northern areas of South America, Africa, Europe, Asia and India.

They are a beautiful and colorful butterfly showing shades of orange with black and white on the upper wings and a mix of colors with spots on the underside of the wings. In this area they are migratory, heading to the southern US and Mexico for the winter and returning to our area in early to mid May.

They also go in cycles, so some years they are quite abundant and other years impossible to find. They have a wingspan of 2 to 2 1/4 inches (50 to 56mm). They have two broods per year, the last brood migrating south from mid September to early October.

The caterpillars love composite flowers such as daisies, asters and spotted knapweed, pearly everlasting. The butterflies themselves love composite flowers also and Labrador tea, joe-pye-weed, zinnia, clover and lupines. They will also feed on soil minerals before migrating south.

They are an interesting and beautiful butterfly for our list. I hope you enjoy this one, have a great day and God bless! Steve. ©2026 Steve McLeod.