Australian painted lady facts for kids
Quick facts for kids Australian painted lady |
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The Australian painted lady (Vanessa kershawi) is a beautiful butterfly found mostly in Australia. Sometimes, strong westerly winds carry these butterflies to islands east of Australia, like New Zealand.
Scientists have different ideas about whether this butterfly is its own species or a type of the more common painted lady (Vanessa cardui). They look very similar and act alike. The regular painted lady is found all over the world, but the Australian one is unique enough that some think it should be a separate species. This is because the male Australian painted lady butterflies have special body parts that are different, and their colours are also a bit different.
In spring, many adult Australian painted lady butterflies fly south from places like Queensland and New South Wales. To find a partner, male butterflies often pick a sunny spot on a hilltop and wait for females to fly by. Even with cities growing and new plants appearing, these butterflies are still doing well.
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What Does the Australian Painted Lady Look Like?
The Australian painted lady looks a lot like the common painted lady (Vanessa cardui). But you can tell them apart because the Australian one is usually smaller, with wings rarely wider than 5 cm (2 inches). It also has blue spots in the middle of at least three of the four eyespots on its back wings.
Its body is dark brown, almost black, but the tips of its antennae are white. The part of the wings closest to the body is brown, which changes to a brick-red colour with black stripes. The tips of the front wings are black with four white dots and a white bar. The back wings have four round eyespots, and at least three of them have a blue centre. The underside of the wings looks almost the same as the top, but the base is brick-red instead of brown. This colouring helps the butterfly blend in with the ground. Males and females look almost identical.
The eggs are clear green and shaped like a barrel with 13 to 15 vertical lines. Just before they hatch, you can see the black head and grey body inside.
The larva (caterpillar) is grey with pale yellow stripes along its sides and yellow dots. It has rows of spiky branches all over its body. Its head is usually brown or black, and the caterpillar grows to about 3 cm long. The pupa (chrysalis) is brown with darker marks and four pairs of shiny silver or gold dots.
How Scientists Classify This Butterfly
The Australian painted lady belongs to the Nymphalidae family and the Vanessa group of butterflies. This group has 22 species, and many of them travel long distances.
Some scientists think the Australian painted lady is just a type (a subspecies) of the common painted lady (V. cardui). This is because they are so similar. However, the common painted lady doesn't change much across the world. The male Australian painted lady has unique body parts that are different from the common painted lady. Also, the Australian species always has at least three (often four) clear blue spots in the eyespots on its back wings. The common painted lady usually has very few or no blue spots. These differences suggest it's a separate species.
The Australian painted lady and the common painted lady have similar lives. But the Australian painted lady lives in a dry, tough environment. Scientists found that if common painted lady caterpillars were stressed (like by cold temperatures), they could develop colours similar to the Australian painted lady. This shows that butterflies can change their visible traits based on their environment. It also suggests that the common painted lady might be the older form, and the Australian painted lady slowly evolved from it because of Australia's environment.
Where Do Australian Painted Ladies Live?
The Australian painted lady is mainly found in Australia. Its close relative, V. cardui, lives almost everywhere else in the world. This means they live in different areas.
In Australia, you can commonly find the Australian painted lady in the southern parts, below the Tropic of Capricorn. It's not common in Queensland and is completely missing from the far north, where there are tropical rainforests.
Even though it's most common in Australia, it has also become common in New Zealand. This happens after strong winds carry them across the sea from Australia. However, these butterflies don't reproduce or stay through the winter in New Zealand. So, they are only considered a truly established species in Australia. You can even find them in cities!
Life Cycle of the Australian Painted Lady
The Australian painted lady's life cycle takes about 53 days in the summer. Females lay their eggs in the middle of a leaf on plants they like to eat. The eggs are green and hatch in about three days.
As a caterpillar, the Australian painted lady is only active at night, mostly eating. During the day, it hides in a curled leaf or at the bottom of a plant. The pupa hangs upside down from the underside of a leaf. This pupa stage lasts about two weeks.
What Do They Eat?
The Australian painted lady usually uses native Australian everlastings and other daisy plants for food and to lay eggs on. But they also eat several plants that were brought to Australia, like capeweed (Arctotheca calendula), Scotch thistle (Onopordum acanthium), and lavender (Lavandula angustifolia). Adult butterflies drink nectar from flowers.
Where Do They Lay Eggs?
Eggs have been found on Arctotis, Chrysanthemum, and Scotch thistle (Cirsium vulgare). However, the caterpillars usually don't survive past their first stage on these plants. Caterpillars have successfully grown on capeweed (Cryptostemma) and cudweed (Gnaphalium). If there aren't enough leaves, they will eat flowers. Butterflies that grew up eating capeweed can smell bad! Other food plants have been noted in Australia, but they don't seem to be used in New Zealand.
How Do Australian Painted Ladies Behave?
Finding Mates and Defending Territory
Male Australian painted ladies have a special way of finding partners because female butterflies are spread out. Since there's plenty of food and places for females to lay eggs, they don't gather in one spot. This makes it hard for a male to guard all the places a female might be.
So, the best plan for males is to defend a small area where females are likely to fly. Females usually only visit these male territories when they are ready to mate. However, if a lot of females gather around a big food source, males stop defending their spots. Instead, they go looking for females where they are all together.
To defend his spot, a male butterfly will perch (sit) from mid-afternoon until dark. He might even come back to the same spot for several afternoons in a row. The longest a male has been seen defending the same spot is three days. Males choose sunny spots on hilltops, as females are likely to fly over these areas. If there are no hilltops, males wait in channels in the plants that would guide wandering females towards them.
The perching male sits and watches the sky for anything moving. Sometimes, he flies around to get a better view. When he sees something flying, he flies straight towards it. If it's another male, he chases it away from his territory. If it's a female, he chases her more slowly and gently away from his perch. Then, the pair lands and mates, which can take over an hour.
Migration
Migration in Australia
People have been watching Australian painted lady migrations since the 1960s. In 1963, a huge migration happened from late August to late September, with butterflies flying southeast. Suddenly, they were common in areas where they had been rare. That year was unusually wet in Australia. This might be similar to the common painted lady, which migrates in Europe during wet seasons. The Australian painted lady flies south in spring and summer, and north in autumn and winter.
Butterflies that migrate often have smaller, lighter bodies, which helps them fly longer distances. They also tend to have larger wings compared to their body size. Temperature and how long the day is can affect how they grow. When caterpillars were kept in short days and cool temperatures (20 °C), like in spring, they grew faster. This made small adults with low body weights, perfect for migrating. The same thing happened when caterpillars were in longer days and warm temperatures (30 °C), like in late summer. These seasonal changes might cause butterflies to develop body types ideal for their spring and autumn migrations.
Migration to New Zealand
During big migrations in Australia, and sometimes with the help of strong winds, the Australian painted lady flies across the sea to New Zealand. They usually appear there only from October to November. Many sightings were reported in the 1960s. In the spring of 1968, they showed up on New Zealand's western coast near the sea and were unusually abundant.
However, this species probably doesn't stay in New Zealand because no caterpillars or adults were found surviving through the winter. Even though some butterflies reproduced and laid eggs, the caterpillars only grew to their first stage before stopping. The same thing happened in late summer 1969, at the same time as a strong westerly wind. This suggests that the butterflies seen in 1968 and 1969 were new arrivals from Australia, not offspring of butterflies that had migrated before. It's not unusual for butterflies and moths to migrate from Australia to New Zealand in summers with strong winds.
Gallery
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V. kershawi adult soon after hatching - note the blue centre of hindwing eyespots.
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Australian painted lady feeding
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Australian painted lady on yellow flower
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Australian painted lady resting on a terrace in Victoria
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V. cardui, a related species, compare hindwing eyespots
See also
In Spanish: Vanessa kershawi para niños
