What Are The Features of an American Lady Caterpillar?

The American lady caterpillar is found throughout North America, Hawaii, southern Canada, Europe, parts of South America and the Caribbean islands. It lives and feeds on burdock, wormwood, ironwood, pearly everlasting, pussytoes, cudweed herbs and plants in the sunflower family. The features of the American lady caterpillar are distinctive.

  1. Characteristics

    • Some American lady caterpillars have a wide, black band on the tops of their bodies, with small, narrow yellow lines. Others are mainly yellow with thin black lines running horizontally between each segment. All of them have distinctive characteristics in common. They include two white spots between each segment and long spiny hairs protruding from red or orange bases along the sections.

    Habitat and Life Cycle

    • American lady caterpillars thrive in weed overgrowth areas, uplands, sand hills, flat woods and lawns. They go into hiding in the daytime and emerge to feed at night. The caterpillars lay eggs and create nests on top of the leaves of the plants they live on, silkening together to form the pupa. Once metamorphosis is complete, the adult butterfly emerges.

    American Lady Butterfly

    • The American lady butterfly has light to bright yellow and orange wings with a slight tint of brown. The colors are separated by black margins within the wingspan. It has a distinguishing white spot inside the orange coloring, which is visible from both sides of the forewing. On the bottom of its hind wings, a cobweb pattern is seen, with two unique spots that resemble eyes. During the summer, the American lady butterfly's coloring is bright and vibrant. In the winter, its colors fade and become pale.

    Diet, Habitat and Range

    • American lady butterflies migrate to the northern United States, southern Canada, Europe and the West Indies. Although rare, some colonize in Labrador and Newfoundland. They inhabit areas with low vegetation, which include meadows, parks, dunes and the edge of forests. They feed primarily on the nectar of flowers, but also eat mud, ripe to rotting fruit and tree sap. They prefer aster, marigold, goldenrod, milkweed, dogbane and vetch flowers.