Australian Painted Lady
Hairy Eyes
Ellura
Australian Painted Lady
Courting
 
                      
Australian Painted Lady (Vanessa kershawi)Class: Animals (Animalia) - Jointed Legs (Arthropoda) - Insects (Insecta)
Order: Butterflies & Moths (Lepidoptera)
Family: Brown Butterfly (Papilionoidea: Nymphalidae)     iNaturalist Observation
Species: Australian Painted Lady (Vanessa kershawi)
This Photo:     Anterior

Thank you Thomas Mesaglio for confirming the id of this species for us

General Species Information:
Found on Ellura (in the Murray Mallee, SA), the Adelaide Hills and elsewhere
Medium sized butterfly with 3 blue and 1 black spots (eye mimics) on the rear (outer margin) of the hindwings.
An attractive array of orange, black & white patterns.
They have hairy eyes!
Various specimens are missing some of the black line on the hindwing forward of the black eye spot.
We found 2 specimens that had spurious white spot in the middle of orange patches. However, they are in different places to each other, and not on any others we've found. They look like some sort of invert (eg a white mite), but the spots are in identical places on each side of the wing.

Copyright © 2016-2024 Brett & Marie Smith. All Rights Reserved. Photographed 18-Oct-2016
This species is classed as C (Common) on the South Australian Butterflies & Moths website