Painted Lady Dining Out

Dogbanes, similar to milkweeds, are considered plentiful sources of nectar, and this Painted Lady was taking full advantage of this. I can distinguish it from its American Lady cousin (from this view) by looking at the 4 small eyespots along the rear of butterfly's wing; 2 large spots would imply an American Lady instead.

In flight, I personally can't distinguish between the 2 butterflies at all. This is somewhat unfortunate since I've been seeing one/both of these butterflies a fair amount this spring, but without a lot of flowers they like in bloom they've mostly been flyby sightings. (Sometimes they'll tease me for a while fluttering in my vicinity or even circling me only to fly off either without landing or landing for just a second or 2 while I fumble to spot them with my binoculars.)

I'm not sure what flower this butterfly is nectaring from, but it looks like a dogbane. Similar to their milkweed relatives, dogbane is popular with the pollinators for fairly abundant nectar and for having lots of flowers together in a cluster.

June 29, 2023 at Sourland Mountain Preserve
Photo 301251811, (c) jpviolette, some rights reserved (CC BY-NC)


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