The Painted Lady Butterfly is found all over the world. It migrates, moving to milder climates for the winter months. Sometimes Painted Ladies migrate up to 4,000 miles. The Painted Lady has a life cycle of complete metamorphosis which takes about 23 days to complete.

The Painted Lady lays it eggs on plants.One type of plant they prefer is the malva plant. If you would like to see this plant, go The eggs are green and shaped like an oval. They are about 1 mm large. After the egg emerges it sometimes eats the home it has just left.

During the larval stage the larva or caterpillar is a very big eater. It stays near the plant where it was hatched, eating mostly leaves. Besides the malva plant it eats thistles, nettles, and sunflowers. See nettles here.This stage takes about 4 weeks to complete.

The caterpillar's body has thierteen body segments and eight pairs of legs. The three pairs nearest the head become adult legs. The other 'false legs', are used for climbing and are shed when the larva goes through the last of the four to six molts it has during its life cycle. When the caterpillar grows too large for its skin, the skin splite up the back and the caterpillar re-emerges.

At the final molt the catepillar keeps only its fromt three pairs of lets. Then it crawls to a safe place and hangs upside down from a branch or leaf. The larvae spins thread and attaches its tail to its resting place. In about 24 hours the skin sp.lits down the back. Under this is the chrysalis,which hardens and becomes a golden color. This casing protects the life inside. The Painted Lady stays in this state from 7 to 10 days.

When the chrysalis splits and releases the butterfly, air is pumped into the wings, filling them with blood and unfolding them. They need enought space for the butterfliy wings to do this. The wings dry and harden within the first day. Veins on the wings give them strength.

The painted Lady has orange, white, brown, and black colors on the top wing and white, brown, tan, black, blue, and purple colors on the bottom part of the wings.

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Planting Guide

A drawing of the Painted Lady and Red Admiral

Photo

Photo

Painted Lady Life Cycle

Butterfly Trivia Game

Monarch Watch Universtiy of Kansas

Moths of the United States

Children's Butterfly Site

Butterfly Site

Let's Get Growing

Butterly Gardening

Insect Lore Company

Monarchs in the Classroom

References from the Children's Butterfly Site

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