• Originally published November 9, 2009 at midnight, updated November 11, 2009 at 2:45 p.m.

Everywhere I look, there are snout butterflies. Driving the South Texas roadways or even walking around town, it is impossible not to encounter thousands of snouts.

Driving the main highways, a vehicle can quickly be plastered with snouts, almost so many the windshield can get so filled with dead snouts that it becomes dangerous. It can be necessary clean off the windshield and later to wash down the vehicle before the abundant dead bugs damage the paint.

Snout butterflies occur throughout Texas as well as west to southern California, east to central New England, and south into Mexico. They normally frequent woodland edges and stream courses and utilize hackberry plants to lay their pale green eggs. The tiny larvae, or caterpillars, which are dark green with yellow stripes, feed on hackberry leaves. They pupate before overwintering as adults in protected areas.

Some years, they become super-abundant. Raymond Neck, author of the 1996 book, "The Field Guide to Butterflies of Texas," explained "Certain climatic conditions, such as severe drought, followed by heavy rains over a large area in southern Texas, produce massive amounts of leaves of food plants. The leaf production allows a major buildup in population numbers of larvae and, subsequently, adults. The new generation of adults emerge at a time when the food plants have been stripped of most of their leaves. The lack of leaves and the dense concentrations of adults trigger a migration involving masses of butterflies that easily number in the hundreds of thousands and even in the millions of individuals." November 2009 is one of those periods.

Snout butterflies, more appropriately known as American snouts (Libytheana carinenta), are little butterflies, about 1 inch in length and with a wingspan of almost 2 inches. In flight, they appear to be multicolored with brown, black and cream-colored wings. When perched with open wings, their colors are obvious, as well as their distinct shape, including a long snout and square-tipped wings. Most often, they perch with folded wings, perpendicular on a branch or on another surface, showing their gray to black to brown mottled undersides. Their long snout is obvious. This unique feature makes them look very much like a leaf or twig and is said to have evolved in this butterfly family to provide them with wonderful camouflage.

Snouts truly are remarkable creatures, part of our native wildlife. However, there are times when they become so numerous along our roadways that they are less marvelous and become more of a pest.

Ro Wauer writes about nature for the Victoria Advocate. Contact him in care of Victoria Advocate, P.O. Box 1518, Victoria, TX 77902.

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