Friday, November 19, 2010

Mystery butterfly

I photographed this butterfly while it was sitting on the wall of my house. I've been using
Michael Braby's The complete field guide to butterflies of Australia to identify my garden visitors. I couldn't identify this one in the book - so it remains a mystery for the moment.

4 comments:

  1. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  2. Hello,
    I live in the Netherlands. I don't know much about butterflies of Australia. But I think it is a Vanessa kershawi, commonly known as the Australian Painted Lady.
    In Europe we have the similar Vanessa cardui.
    Best regards,
    Thijs de Graaf
    http://www.tuin-thijs.com/indexengels.htm

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  3. Hi Thijs - Dank u wel
    It's possible - or at least a lead. When I looked at photos on Google there was quite a bit of orange on the wing not in the photo. But the bottom 1/2 definitely looks the same.
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Butterfly_on_yellow_flower.jpg

    Either the orange was obscured or the butterfly from the same family.
    Cheers!
    Robyn

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  4. Many thanks Thijs - After more Googling - yes it is the Australian painted lady.
    http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Vanessa_Kershawi_1.jpg

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