Painted lady

BTW, thanks a lot, Daniela and Karen.

In spite of Daniela and Karen's comments, I'll follow Bayucca's advise. He is my butterflies ID guru, after all. But there is still a beautiful lady in this spotting... :-)

Beautiful indeed - It's a great name for it Sergio!

What a pretty common name for your butterfly! The common name for this one, here in Argentina is "Dama de cuatro ojos" for its notable four ocelli. :)

I knew it must be like this...!
Just take Painted Lady. Gives you in addition an artistic touch...

Bayucca, although I looked on many sources for a brazilian common name, I found none. So, yes, I used some poetic license... :-)

Vanessa carye is correct. It replaces Vanessa cardui in South America. I don't now if Beautiful Lady is the correct common name or you just call her so, because it is really a beauty...

According to D'Abrera, V. Annabela is found from Canada to Mexico and Guatemala, not in Brazil, specially as far south as this one was spotted. The large orange spot right to the side of the four white spots on front wing, and the four occelli on the hind wings (only three can be seen in the left wing, but a fourth appears partially on the right wing) make me think of V. Virginiensis, but then again, according to D'Abrera, it is found on northern South America only. I strongly feel this is V. Carye, which matches both appearance and geog. distribution, but I'd like a second opinion.