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painted lady

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painted lady

a migratory nymphalid butterfly, Vanessa cardui, with pale brownish-red mottled wings
Collins Discovery Encyclopedia, 1st edition © HarperCollins Publishers 2005
The following article is from The Great Soviet Encyclopedia (1979). It might be outdated or ideologically biased.

Painted Lady

 

(Pyrameis cardui), a butterfly of the family Nymphalidae with a wingspread reaching 6 cm. Painted ladies are brownish black with white and pinkish red spots; the underside of the hind wings has a marbled design and eye spots along the outer edge. The caterpillar is yellow and dark gray and is covered with spines. It usually lives in the leaves of plants of the family Compositae, especially thistle, drawing the leaves together with silk threads. The painted lady is found on all the continents except South America. During years of mass reproduction, the caterpillars damage soybeans, sunflowers, hemp, cotton, and other crops. Measures to control the insect include weeding crops during the egg-laying period and spraying the plants with insecticides.

The Great Soviet Encyclopedia, 3rd Edition (1970-1979). © 2010 The Gale Group, Inc. All rights reserved.
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References in periodicals archive
Their vice-president, Chris Packham, said recently: "2019 could be a very good year for the painted lady with high numbers already being recorded across parts of the UK.
Chris said:"The Painted Lady migration is one of the wonders of the natural world.
Smaller than the peacocks and painted lady's and strangely coloured, I had never seen one like it before.
But the amazing migration of the painted lady buttefly is anything but straightforward.
Every year painted lady butterflies arrive in the UK from North Africa and the Mediterranean but this summer is set to beat the last major invasion a decade ago when an estimated 11 million populated Britain in summer.
The butterfly is a common migrant from the Continent to the UK each summer where its caterpillars feed on thistles, but around once every 10 years there is a painted lady "summer" when millions arrive en masse.
Unusually high numbers of Painted Lady butterflies have been reported across Europe over the spring and early summer, with large numbers now spotted crossing over into the UK.
Experts have claimed a once-in-a-decade influx of painted lady butterflies could occur in the UK this summer.
The painted lady butterfly passes through the UK on an extraordinary migration from Africa to the Arctic.
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