The West Coast lady (Vanessa annabella) is one of three North American species of brush-footed butterflies known colloquially as the "painted ladies". V. annabella occurs throughout much of the western US and southwestern Canada. The other two species are the cosmopolitan Vanessa cardui (painted lady) and the eastern Vanessa virginiensis (American painted lady). This species has also been considered a subspecies of the South American Vanessa carye and is frequently misspelled as "anabella".
Distinguishing features
thumb|left|Schematic of standard wing terminology
Aside from general differences in distribution, V. annabella can be distinguished from the other two painted ladies of North America as follows:
Most conspicuously, it lacks obvious ventral eyespots on the hindwings; there are two large ones on V. virginiensis and four small ones on V. cardui. Like the latter, it also lacks a white dot in the pinkish-orange subapical field of the ventral and dorsal forewings. Its upperwing coloration has the purest orange of the three; the American painted lady is usually quite reddish.
A less reliable indicator is the row of black eyespots on the dorsal submarginal hindwing. These are usually of roughly equal size in V. cardui and lack blue centers, though the summer morph may have a few tiny ones. In the other two, usually two eyespots are larger and have more conspicuous blue centers. In V. virginiensis, these normally are the spot at each end of the row, whereas in the present species it is the two middle ones.
Developmental stages
The developmental stages of Vanessa annabella can be divided into eight different stages: first instar larva, second instar larva, third instar larva, fourth instar larva, fifth instar larva, prepupa, pupa, and adult. In their adult stage, there is subtle sexual dimorphism between males and females, as females have a more rounded hindwing compared to their male counterparts. Their habitats are mostly localized to open areas from the Upper Sonoran to the Canadian zones. The West Coast Lady is a multiple brooded species, meaning that there are more than one set of offspring within a single breeding season.