American Snout Butterfly

About the American Snout Butterfly

The American Snout might be the strangest face in Texas butterflying: its elongated mouthparts stick straight out like a long beak, giving the butterfly the profile of a tiny bird - or, when it hangs under a twig with wings closed, of a dead leaf complete with stem. That leaf act is the whole strategy, and it is a good one.

Snouts are hackberry specialists. Their caterpillars feed on hackberry leaves, which ties the species to one of the most common trees in the state - and sets up one of Texas' great natural spectacles.

In wet years, South Texas snout populations can explode into mass emigrations of millions of butterflies, drifting north in loose clouds that dust windshields and make the evening news. These legendary snout flights have been recorded in Texas for over a century and remain one of the few butterfly events big enough to notice from a moving car.

Up close the snout is handsomer than its comic profile suggests: warm orange patches on brown forewings tipped with white spots, and that silvery leaf-gray underside. Look for them puddling at damp soil or perched head-down on twigs, pretending very convincingly to be foliage.