Unexpected Delight - a sudden batch of Painted Ladies

All of a sudden, roughly the 3rd week of July, we had half a dozen bright orange moth/butterfly things nervously flitting all over the yard.  They were particularly fond of our stand of hearty stand of Echinacea, and the long teaming row of Zinnias.

What ARE they?
A: Vanessa cardui - commonly referred to as Painted Lady butterflies.

Where did they come from?
A: That one is harder.  Since they only live 2-4 weeks in the wild, from egg to adult, this batch was probably "born" nearby.  A site in Texas says that in the SW USA they feed and lay their eggs on plants from the Malvaceae family.  (Another round of internet searching to hunt that down. :))  In our yard, the Hollyhocks and Desert GlobeMallow.

In the big picture, the answer blew my mind.  As a species, they are THE MOST WIDESPREAD of all the butterflies: a quick web search turned up blog posts about their life cycle from Pakistan, a huge citizen group from Barcelona studying their migration habits, and white papers about them from a dozen states.

 

 

References

https://www.massaudubon.org/nature-wildlife/insects-arachnids/butterfly-atlas/find-a-butterfly?id=90