 |
||||||||||||||
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
||||||||
Painted Lady (Vanessa (Cynthia) cardui)
© Nick Greatorex-Davies
The Painted Lady arrives in the UK in the spring as a migrant from North Africa every year, with numbers arriving fluctuating considerably from one year to the next. Vast numbers arrive in some years (e.g. 1996). Offspring from the early migrants can be seen until the first frosts in the autumn. Thistles (e.g. Circium spp.) are the most frequently used foodplant in the UK. Unlike our other Vanessids the adults do not normally survive our British winter. (For further details on this species see http://www.butterfly-conservation.org/).
Family: Nymphalidae
Status: Rapid increase
Status details:
Status since 1976 is Rapid increase with an increase of 484.9%
Status over the last 20 years is Stable with an increase of 289.3%
Status over the last 10 years is Stable with an increase of 765.1%
Back to the topLog collated index plot
This chart shows the index of abundance (LCI = Log Collated Index) over time. It shows fluctuations in populations from year to year, and is scaled so that the average index over the whole series is equal to 2 (horizontal line). For greater detail about how this index is derived, click on the green question mark above.
Trend description:
This migrant species experiences almost annual fluctuations between years of relative abundance and years of relative scarcity lagely governed by breeding success in southern Europe and North Africa. Several other species show a similar pattern of fluctuations, including resident species, but not as strongly as the Painted Lady. Although the data show a positive trend this is not significant.
Distribution...
This map shows the distribution between 1995 and 1999. Data is derived from the Butterflies for the New Millenium dataset via the NBN Gateway (www.searchnbn.net).
View the distribution on the NBN GatewayPhenology...
Phenology plot
Phenology plot
This chart shows the average number of butterflies seen on transects between Arpil and October. The black line gives average counts over the full BMS series (1976 to date) and the red line gives the average for the last year.
Abundance...
Abundance
This map shows symbols for the mean abundance at transect sites, with the size of symbol reflecting the level of abundance. Means are over all years.
Coverage
In total, Painted Lady has been recorded from 821 transects in the Butterfly Monitoring Scheme. Of these, annual indices of abundance have been calculated from 986 sites, with an average index of 8 individuals per site.
For 466 of these sites, Painted Lady has been recorded well enough to calculate annual indices of abundance in 6 or more years, allowing trends to be calculated.
In 2006, 10097 individuals were recorded from 585 sites, producing annual indices at 451 of these.
