Finds of Painted Lady, Cynthia cardui, 1996

On 1 and 2 June, thistle butterflies were observed in Helsinki, and on 9 June, 28 specimens were counted heading northward in Aarhus, Denmark. On 8 June, more than 30 records are reported from the Shetland Islands, and in the days following, many were seen in the Stockholm region. By 10 June, Cynthia had reached Kuopio, and a week later records were reported from Oulu.

After 15 June, there are scarcely any reports of emigrating Cynthia cardui.

CONCLUDING REMARKS

I still have few records of thistle butterfly findings from other parts of Sweden. They certainly exist and would complete the picture of what may be the most extensive invasion in several decades.

The above account of the thistle butterfly's advance across Europe would not be possible to present without access to the Internet. I wish to extend my sincere thanks to Bart Vanholder in Belgium and others.

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Perhaps Johan Höjer's article has aroused some interest in this remarkable butterfly. One might ask whether there are other thistle butterfly species on our earth? And indeed there are!

The genus Cynthia, which Fabricius described as early as 1807, stands very close to the genus Vanessa, which the same Fabricius also described in 1807. Those wishing to delve deeper into this matter are recommended to consult Fields's work from 1971.

The number of tawny-brown thistle-butterfly-like species amounts to at least ten, of which all but one fly on the American continent. Our own thistle butterfly has been known for a long time. Long before Linnaeus described the animal in Systema Naturae in 1758, it was known in England under the name The Painted Lady. Linnaeus was right when he used the host plant as the name, which subsequently gave it the Swedish name—or was it the other way around? Usually we are grateful for our Swedish plain names, but sometimes one misses certain much more evocative English names, such as precisely "the Painted Lady."

The genus Cynthia is, as mentioned above, very closely related to the well-known genus Vanessa, with our Admiral as its most famous representative. We have a total of about ten Vanessa species on our earth. It would therefore not be entirely wrong to let the thistle butterflies form their own genus, even if they, had they been brown and not so conspicuous, would fit well within the same genus as the Admirals. In most modern comprehensive works on the world's butterflies, both species groups are now classified within the genus Vanessa.

Of the 10 thistle butterfly species, our Cynthia cardui is completely dominant. This butterfly is also the species that of its own accord has colonized the largest area on our earth. From the map you can see that it can in principle be found throughout our world except in southern and central South America and in Australia. On these latter continents, however, related species do fly. Particularly Cynthia kershawi, which flies in Australia, is very similar to our own species. What most distinguishes it from "our" species is, among other things, a number of blue spots on the upper side of the hind wing. Because of this it is accordingly called the Bluespotted Painted Lady, in contrast to our thistle butterfly which is then called the Blackspotted Painted Lady. At least a couple of documented records of "our" black-spotted thistle butterfly, Cynthia cardui, have however been found flying wild even on the Australian continent.

Vanessa cardui

Distribution:
see map below

Vanessa kershawi

Australia
New Zealand