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Red spotted admiral butterfly sitting on spring thistle

$Butterflies, certainly \$

Meadow brown butterfly (maniola jurtina) pollinating verbena bonariensis flowers in a UK summer garden

Female marbled white butterfly sucking on a scabiosa.

$Vanessa cardui - Painted lady butterfly - Distelfalter\nBeautiful butterfly on a thistle flower. Europe.$

Common Commander butterfly feeding on Mikania micrantha Kunth (Mile-a-minute Weed). Butterfly feeding on weeds.

Eastern tiger swallowtail (Papilio glaucus) feeding on joe-pye weed in summer, Connecticut, with defocused background. 4:3 format.

Clusters of purple Argentinian vervain, Verbena bonariensis, flowers with a feeding painted lady butterfly, Vanessa cardui, in close up and a background of blurred leaves.

Monarch butterfly (Danaus plexippus) feeding on bull thistle (Cirsium vulgare) inflorescence in summer.

Monarch butterfly on purple aster flower in early autumn

A blue argus butterfly forages a gomphrena in a park.

Flowering milk thistle and butterfly hives on a flower

The blue color of the Common Blue butterfly is less evident when its wings are closed, but a distinct blue hue does show up. The detailed patterns on the wings are a marvel of the artistry of nature. This photographe was taken in the midday sunshine in Southern Quebec in summertime.

Great Spangled Fritillary (Speyeria cybele) feeding on a flower

$Vanessa cardui is a very common migrant that arrives from Africa every summer. Numbers fluctuate annually, depending on the reproduction in Africa.\nThe species is most likely to be seen in open areas were the vegetation has a mosaic structure, such as waste land, fallow ground and pasture land.\nit uses various species of Carduus, Arctium and Cirsium both as larval food plant and as a source of nectar.\n\nThis is a common Migration Butterfly in the Netherlands.$

Painted lady butterfly feeding on New England Aster flower. It is in the Cynthia group of colorful butterflies and comprises a subgenus of the genus Vanessa in the family Nymphalidae.

A Belle-Dame butterfly is placed on a gomphrena.

Female Apollo Butterfly, Parnassius apollo

Painted lady on butterfly bush in a Connecticut state forest, late summer. One of the most widely distributed butterflies in the world.

Western Tiger Swallowtail Butterfly sitting on purple flower with green background.

A mail Fender's Blue Butterfly with green background. Wings are closed. This subspecies is only known to be in the Willamette Valley of Oregon.

Butterfly on Globe Amaranth flowers field. The scene for relaxation. Globe amaranth plants are native to Central America but do well in all the USDA plant hardiness zones. The plant is a tender annual, but it tends to reseed itself for years of consistent blooms in the same area. Learning how to grow globe amaranth is easy and its round blooms will attract butterflies and important garden pollinators. Popular to use for ornamental flowers in garden.

Typical biotopes of this butterfly are ruderal lands, gardens, barbs, fallow lands and roadways.

$Description:\nMelanargia galathea has a wingspan of 46–56 millimetres In these medium-sized butterflies the upper side of the wings is decorated with white and gray-black or dark brown markings, but it is always gray-black or dark brown checkered in the basal and distal areas. The underside is similar to the upper side but the drawings is light gray or light brown. On the underside of the hindwings is present a row of gray eye spots. The males and the females are quite similar, except that some females may have a yellowish nuance on the underside of the wings.\nLife cycle:\nLike other members of its subfamily, the larvae feed on various grasses. These include Phleum (P. pratense), Poa (P. annua, P. trivalis), Festuca rubra, Bromus erectus, Dactylis, Brachypodium pinnatum, Agrostis capillaris, Elytrigia, Holcus, Dactylis, Triticum and Agropyron species . \nEggs are laid on the wing, or from brief perches on grass stems, and are just sprinkled among the grass stems. Upon hatching, the larvae immediately enter hibernation and only feed the following spring when the fresh growth occurs. They are a lime-green colour, with a dark green line running down the middle of their back. Pupation takes place at ground level in a loose cocoon. Adults can be found from early June to early September. On a good site, in warm, sunny weather, thousands can be seen gently fluttering amongst the grass heads.\nHabitat:\nIt is found in forest clearings and edges, meadows and steppe where it occurs up to 1,500-1,700 m above sea level. They are a common sight in unimproved grasslands across Europe.\n\nDistribution:\nThis species can be found across most of Europe, southern Russia, Asia Minor and Iran. There is an isolated population in Japan. It is not found in Ireland, North Britain, Scandinavia (except Denmark) and Portugal or Spain. The late twentieth century saw an expansion of its range in the UK (source Wikipedia).$

Free Images: "bestof:Butterfly on a pink-flowered thistle (Cirsium species), Glacier Pools Preserve, Lycoming County. I've licensed this photo as CC0 for release into the public"

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