Empress Leilia

About the Empress Leilia

The Empress Leilia is a warm orange-brown butterfly of the desert Southwest and South Texas thorn scrub - a member of the emperor group, with dark eyespots along the hindwing edge and two dark bars on the forewing that separate it from the similar Hackberry Emperor. It sits with wings closed on branches and trunks, often head-down.

Like its relatives it seldom visits flowers, preferring tree sap, rotting fruit, and animal dung, and it is famously fond of landing on people for the salt in sweat. Males perch in the open and dart out at anything that passes. The caterpillars feed only on spiny hackberry, so wherever that shrub grows in the brush country, this butterfly is close by.

In Texas the Empress Leilia flies year-round in the Rio Grande Valley and the western brush country, and it is a regular sight along the trails at Santa Ana and Bentsen.