American Snout Butterflies on Wolfberry

After I wrote last week’s post about insects gathering nectar and pollen from a flowering wolfberry plant,  I visited the plant once more.

It looked quite different. Rather than one or two snout butterflies here and there, there were over thirty fluttering around.

A closer view…

Can you see the long snout that gives them their common name?

The adult butterflies were only sipping nectar from the wolfberry flowers and it is not a host for them. Snouts lay their eggs on hackberry trees (Celtis sp.)

The caterpillars that hatch from the eggs are green. Butterflies and Moths of North America website has some photographs of the caterpillars. When they are done feeding, they form chrysalids that are a similar green color.

Today, the wolfberry has finished flowering. I wonder where the snout butterflies are now.

2 Comments

  1. Cassie Bentley

    Interesting how animals and plants work together and depend on each other for all sorts of life needs.
    The shot of the snout really makes sense of how the butterfly got it’s name.

  2. Roberta

    Yes, insects and plants are connected in more ways than we often realize.

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