This species is native to southern America and ist rarely recorded outside of its native range. For example, I have reported three specimens of this species that according to the data on their labels were collected on the Canary Islands (Spain) (Prpic 1999). Apart from the possibility that there is a small but stable population of this species on the Canary Islands, these specimens may also have been translocated to the archipelago from southern America by air-currents or storms, or they have been accidentally introduced by ship or plane. The only record of this species for Germany is a single specimen collected in Frankfurt am Main (Hessen) in 1974, that however has been misidentified as Vanessa virginiensis (see discussion in Crolla et al. 2002). This specimen is thus also the basis for the (erroneous) record of Vanessa virginiensis in Germany that is repeatedly included in faunal lists for Germany; the genuine Vanessa virginiensis has so far not been recorded from Germany. Crolla et al. (2002) suggest that the specimen arrived in Frankfurt either by accidental import, or by deliberate release.