Vanessa (butterfly)
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Vanessa |
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Red Admiral (Vanessa atalanta)
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See text. |
Vanessa is a genus of butterflies. The most common butterflies in this genus are the Red Admiral (Vanessa atalanta), the American Lady (Vanessa virginiensis), the West Coast Lady (Vanessa annabella) and the Painted Lady (Vanessa cardui). Vanessa also includes the New Zealand Red Admiral (Vanessa gonerilla) and the Kamehameha (Vanessa tameamea) of Hawaii.
The name of the genus may have been taken from the girl's name. Though it has been suggested the name may be a variant of 'Phanessa', from a Greek word for a mystic divinity, this is unlikely. The name of the divinity is actually not 'Phanessa', but Phanes, and Johan Christian Fabricius, the entomologist who named this genus, normally used the original forms of the names of Classical divinities when he created new scientific names.
[edit] Species
- V. abyssinica
- V. altissima (Rosenberg et Talbot, 1914)
- V. annabella (Field, 1971)
- V. atalanta (Linné, 1758)
- V. braziliensis (Moore, 1883)
- V. buana (Fruhstorfer, 1898)
- V. calliroe (Hübner, 1808)
- V. cardui (Linné, 1758)
- V. carye (Hübner, 1812)
- V. dejeani (Godart, 1824)
- V. dilekta
- V. gonerilla (Fabricius, 1775)
- V. indica (Herbst, 1794)
- V. itea (Fabricius, 1775)
- V. kershawi (McCoy, 1868)
- V. myrinna (Doubleday, 1849)
- V. samani (Hagen, 1895)
- V. tameamea (Eschscholtz, 1878)
- V. terpsichore (Philipi, 1859)
- V. virginiensis (Drury, 1773)
- V. vulcania (Godart, 1819)