Painted Lady at Marsh

I visited the Botanical Gardens intending to blog about the "butterfly bush" in front of Greenhouse #2, which is usually covered in a number of different butterflies. Unfortunately, I only saw a couple of bees and no butterflies, so I went to the annual cut-flower garden (which is behind all the new greenhouses, by the beehives). No monarchs or swallowtails this time, but I did see lots of other butterflies (and bees and flies and cool stuff--you should really visit if you want to catch bugs), including this pretty painted lady.

The dorsal and ventral sides are really different, which is pretty cool...

Apparently dorsal sides are usually used for attracting mates, while ventral sides are used for camouflage. Here's a paper about it: http://rspb.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/276/1666/2369.full

And here is the website for Marsh Botanical Gardens (it has directions to get there, I think): http://marshbotanicalgarden.yale.edu/

And here is more incentive for you to go (just think of all the pollinators!):