About Vanessa atalanta (Linnaeus, 1758)
This butterfly, Vanessa atalanta, has forewings with a black base color, an oblique vermilion band, and a group of white subapical spots. On the hindwings, most of the distal margin is red, marked with a row of small black spots and an elongate blue spot at the anal angle. The underside of the wings is partly variegated with blue. Forewing underside markings are overall similar to those on the upper side, while the hindwing underside is brightly variegated and clouded with black markings. Among these black markings, the markings in the cell resemble numbers: on the left wing they look like 18 or 98, and on the right wing they look like 81 or 89. There is a pale patch in the middle of the costal area, and a row of ocellus-like spots in the distal marginal area. Occasionally, especially in female individuals, a small white spot appears in the middle of the forewing’s red band. The red admiral butterfly occurs in temperate regions of North Africa, North and Central America, Europe, Asia, as well as the island regions of Hawaii and the Caribbean.
