Painted Lady

Painted Lady

I spotted this Painted Lady while it was having a rest somewhere above the swamp soil in ‘Hohes Venn’, the greatest and oldest National Park of Belgium and the most unique nature biotop in the land.

The Painted Lady is a real migratory butterfly, travelling around 2000 (!) kilometers in its life.

This energetic butterfly lives year-round in the North & Central African deserts and mountains.
In may and june, lots of them migrates from Africa to Western and Northern Europe (the same happens from the deserts of Mexico to the USA and Canada).

Beginning in August some specimen of this butterfly migrate south again, back to the desert wintering grounds, but most specimen however die here in the autumn as is also the case with its offspring.

Dutch name : Distelvlinder
German name : Distelfalter
Latin name : Vanessa cardui

Here you can see the other side of the Painted Lady :