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Australian Painted Lady

Vanessa kershawi

Description:

The Australian painted lady is remarkably similar to the painted lady (Vanessa cardui). It is differentiated by its smaller size, rarely exceeding 2 in across its wings, and the blue colouration at the center of the four eyespots on its hindwings. Its body is dark brown, almost black, all over, except the tips of the antenna which are white. The base of the wings are brown, which turns into a brick red coloration, broken by bands of black. The tips of the forewing are black with four white dots running from the apex of the wing, and a white bar extending from the leading edge of the forewing. The hindwings have four round eye-spots at their base, with a blue center for at least three. The underwings are almost identical to the upperwings, except the base of the underwings is brick red rather than brown. The Australian painted lady's colouration allows it to blend in effectively with the ground.[8] Males and females look almost identical.(from wikipedia)

Habitat:

I see this butterfly fairly often around my garden at the moment. Here it is seen on one of my many Daisy plants.

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JamesPriest2
Spotted by
JamesPriest2

Sydney, NSW, Australia

Spotted on Oct 2, 2016
Submitted on Oct 5, 2016

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