Insect

Painted Lady

Vanessa cardui

IUCN: Least Concern

Painted Lady (Vanessa cardui) photographed by Devendra Bhardwaj — Image: Devendra Bhardwaj · iNaturalist · CC BY-NC 4.0 · Vaishali Nagar, Jaipur, Rajasthan · Resized

Scientific name: Vanessa cardui
Family: Nymphalidae, order Lepidoptera
Group: Insect
Conservation status: Least Concern

A global traveller that crosses continents.

Spot it Orange-and-black wings with white spots.
Home Fields and gardens.
Food web Caterpillars eat thistles and mallows; adults sip nectar.
Why it matters A migrant pollinator linking flowers across continents.

Read more: Vanessa cardui on Wikipedia

Sources and credits

Records and field notes

RajasthanDevendra Bhardwaj has 1 verified record of this species on iNaturalist in 2021, in Jaipur.^[20]

Sources

IUCN Red List of Threatened Species (species pages linked on each entry) (database). Global conservation status. Every species page was opened.
Devendra Bhardwaj. iNaturalist observations and notes, with place and date (inaturalist.org/people/devendrabhardwaj) (field record). The observer's own dated records and notes, with places. Statements in his notes are his own and were not independently checked by KJVF.
GBIF Backbone Taxonomy and GBIF species data (family, order, Hindi names, IUCN category) (database). Open biodiversity data. Used for classification, Hindi common names and the IUCN category where one is given.
Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia (opening lines of each species article, CC BY-SA 4.0). The link on each entry goes to the article (reference). Not peer reviewed. Only the opening description is used, and statements about origin or medicinal use are left out.
Short introductions and key points written with AI help (Google Gemini and Claude) and checked against GBIF where possible (reference). AI-assisted text for general readers. Please check important details before relying on them.

The tag before each record shows the place it was checked for.

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