Australian painted lady
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| Australian Painted Lady | ||||||||||||||||||||
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 Australian painted lady (Vanessa kershawi) in Tasmania
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| Scientific classification | ||||||||||||||||||||
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| Binomial name | ||||||||||||||||||||
| Vanessa (Cynthia) kershawi (McCoy, 1868) |
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Cynthia kershawi McCoy, 1868 |
Vanessa kershawi, commonly known as the Australian Painted Lady, is a butterfly that is mostly confined to Australia, although westerly winds have dispersed it to islands east of Australia, including New Zealand.
Vanessa kershawi is similar to the near-cosmopolitan Painted Lady V. cardui and is sometimes considered a subspecies of that butterfly. The Australian species' four ventral eyespots are less clearly defined, and it always sports at least three (often four) conspicuous blue pupil spots on each dorsal hindwings' eyespots. V. cardui has either a few tiny pupil spots, or more often none at all.
A major food plant is Ammobium alatum.
 Vanessa cardui; compare hindwing eyespots. |
 Vanessa kershawi; Adult soon after hatching. Note blue center of hindwing eyespots. |
[edit] References
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