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American Snout (Libytheana carinenta)
Above and below: Photographed on Hart-Miller Island, Baltimore Co., Maryland (9/10/2005).
Below: An American Snout in Great Dismal Swamp, Virginia (5/27/2011).
Below: An American Snout at Santa Ana NWR, Texas (8/5/2007). Other cool butterflies at Santa Ana included Zebra Heliconian, Mexican Bluewing, Giant Swallowtail, White Peacock, Goatweed Leafwing, Queen, White-patched Skipper. I also saw a Bordered Patch in Poteet, Texas on my way back north.
Comments: "Often common in south, less so northward. In Texas and Arizona, massive flights of huge numbers are legendary but unpredictable. Visits flowers as well as sap and mud. Snouts are masters of deception in flight, bouncing like satyrs one moment, gliding like checkerspots the next. Flies all year in south, spring to fall northward (2-3 broods). Head with long snoutlike palpi, forewing tips extended and squared off. Above brown with orange basally and white forewing spots. Quite variable below; hindwing can be plain or mottled gray. Southeastern population sometimes considered a separate species. Larval foodplant: Hackberries" (Kaufman's Butterflies of North America).