#2397 · 🦋 butterflies & moths
Painted Lady
🇳🇱 Distelvlinder ·Vanessa cardui
9 photos from iNaturalist (Creative Commons) · credits & licences
what is it?
Vanessa cardui is a well-known colorful butterfly, known as the painted lady , or in North America as the cosmopolitan . This butterfly has a strange habit of flying in a sort of screw shape.
base stats
Bars compare against all animals on log scales: up to 300,000 Dutch and 600,000 worldwide sightings (the most-seen species), 150 t (blue whale), 30 m and 400 years (Greenland shark).
fun facts
- Spotted 1,640 times in the Netherlands on iNaturalist: the #13 most seen of the butterflies & moths in NL.
- 216,291 observations worldwide on iNaturalist.
- Scientifically named in 1758 (268 years ago).
fact sheet
- English
- Painted Lady
- Nederlands
- Distelvlinder
- scientific name
- Vanessa cardui
- class
- Insecta
- order
- Lepidoptera
- family
- Nymphalidae
- IUCN Red List
- LC · least concern
- sightings in NL
- 1,640
- sightings in Europe
- 85,251
- sightings worldwide
- 216,291
- GBIF records in NL
- 262,850
- weight
- —
- length
- —
- lifespan
- —
- named
- 1758
IUCN in Dutch: niet bedreigd. Blank means the sources don't say.
relatives· Nymphalidae
#2385 📷 8Red Admiral
🇳🇱 Atalanta
Vanessa atalanta
LC 👀 4.7k in NL
#2386 📷 9Speckled Wood
🇳🇱 Bont zandoogje
Pararge aegeria
👀 4.3k in NL
#2387 📷 10European Peacock Butterfly
🇳🇱 Dagpauwoog
Aglais io
👀 3.8k in NL
#2392 📷 10European Comma
🇳🇱 Gehakkelde Aurelia
Polygonia c-album
👀 2k in NL
#2395 📷 10Meadow Brown
🇳🇱 Bruin zandoogje
Maniola jurtina
👀 1.7k in NL
#2399 📷 9Map
🇳🇱 Landkaartje
Araschnia levana
👀 1.4k in NL
#2402 📷 9Small Tortoiseshell
🇳🇱 Kleine vos
Aglais urticae
👀 1.2k in NL
#2403 📷 10Small Heath
🇳🇱 Hooibeestje
Coenonympha pamphilus
👀 1.2k in NL
Sources: iNaturalist taxon 48548, Wikidata Q158603, GBIF 4299368, Wikipedia (EN), Wikipedia (NL). Intro text from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0).Updated 2026-10-24.