Painted lady Painted lady The Cynthia group of colourful butterflies, commonly called painted ladies, comprises a subgenus of the genus "Vanessa" in the family Nymphalidae. They are well known throughout most of the world. The group includes: The painted lady ("V. cardui") is a large butterfly (wing span ) identified by the black and white corners of its mainly deep orange, black-spotted wings. It has five white spots in the black forewing tips and while the orange areas may be pale here and there, there are no clean white dots in them. The hindwings carry four small submarginal eyespots on the dorsal
Australian painted lady the painted lady, which suggests that it is a separate species. The Australian species' four ventral eyespots are less clearly defined, and it always sports at least three (often four) conspicuous blue pupil spots on each dorsal hindwings' eyespots. "V. cardui" has either a few tiny pupil spots, or more often, none at all. The Australian painted and the painted lady have very similar lifestyles and behaviours, but the Australian painted lady lives in an arid and stressful environment. Australian painted lady colouration could be induced in painted lady butterflies by injecting the larvae with stress-inducing hormones and subjecting them