Sometimes even distantly related butterflies will look similar. The two butterflies below are both in the same family, the Brush-footed Butterflies, but they diverged sometime in the past 65 million years yet retained similar orange & black patterning.
Which of the following photos shows a Tawny Emperor?
The butterfly on the right is the Tawny Emperor. The butterfly on the left is a Painted Lady.
Although these two species look similar at a superficial glance, there are a couple of field marks you can use to tell them apart. At the bottom of the upper side, the Tawny Emperor has a series of black spots, while the Painted Lady typically has spots with a blue center and a black outline. In both species, the fore wing tip is capped in black with white spots. In the Tawny Emperor, there are multiple rows of these white spots and they tend towards a cream color. The Painted Lady only has one row of white spots and they tend to be brighter white. Lastly, moving towards the body on the fore wing both species have rows of black wavy lines. The lines of the Tawny Emperor only stretch across the first wing cell or less than 50% of the wing, while the lines on the Painted Lady stretch across the entire fore wing.
Photo credits:
Painted Lady by Kent McFarland (iNaturalist)
Tawny Emperor by JD Flores (iNaturalist)
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