Red-Spotted Purple Butterfly
Hunlock Creek PA
2008

Limenitis arthemis, the red-spotted purple or white admiral, is a North American butterfly species in the cosmopolitan genus Limenitis.

For most of us in the eastern U.S., there are four common species of dark blue and black butterflies. Three of those species are swallowtails, but one of them isn’t. At first glance, the red-spotted purple (Limenitis arthemis astyanax) looks similar to the dark blue and black swallowtails. However, if you give it a second glance, it is easy to tell apart because it lacks the swallowtails!

Although the red-spotted purple used to be considered its own species, it is now considered a subspecies and has been combined with the white admiral (Limenitis arthemis arthemis). The species as a whole is sometimes called the red-spotted admiral (not to be confused with the red admiral which is a different species). However, the two subspecies look very different and are typically still referred to by their original common names.

Most of us don’t have to worry about the white admiral. It is found primarily in Canada and north into Alaska. The red-spotted purple is the subspecies found throughout most of the eastern U.S. However, there is an area of overlap between the two subspecies that some of our readers need to be aware of. This area of overlap roughly corresponds to New England and the Great Lakes region. Where the two subspecies overlap, they hybridize and you get a variety of different wing patterns that are intergrades between the two subspecies.

Red-spotted purples are medium-sized butterflies – roughly the size of a viceroy or fritillary. When their wings are open, they are black with a blue wash on the hind wings. When their wings are closed, they are mostly black with a band of blue near the edge, a row of orange spots next to the blue, and then a few more orange spots near the body.


Butterflies are insects that have large, often brightly coloured wings, and a conspicuous, fluttering flight. The group comprises the superfamilies Hedyloidea and Papilionoidea. Butterfly fossils date to the Paleocene, about 56 million years ago.

Due to their bright colors and visits to flowers, butterflies are the most familiar of insects to humans. There are about 17,500 species of butterflies in the world, and around 750 species in the United States.

https://www.si.edu/spotlight/buginfo/butterfly

https://butterflywebsite.com/