The last couple weeks you might have noticed a large number of small butterflies drifting through Central Texas. The view from a park or garden can be magical, as hundreds meander through the air flashing specks of brown, black and yellow. The view from a highway is less so, as the bugs reel between vehicles before getting squished by an oncoming windshield.
No matter how you鈥檝e experienced them, you鈥檝e probably wondered, 鈥淲hat are these things?鈥�
They鈥檙e snout butterflies. And this year has been a good one for them in Central Texas.
It all comes down to weather. August was hot and dry, and September was cool and wet.
Mike Quinn, an Austin-based invertebrate biologist, said drought in August is 鈥渟hown to knock out all the predators and parasitoid insects that keep the snout butterfly population in check.鈥� A wet September gives the snout caterpillars plenty of fresh hackberry leaves to munch on.
鈥淏ecause of the reduction in the predators, a high percentage of the snout butterfly caterpillars survive to adulthood,鈥� Quinn said. 鈥淎nd so you have what we're experiencing right now.鈥�
What we're seeing are "mass movements," not migrations, he said. Unlike monarch butterflies, the snouts are not traveling a fixed seasonal path between two set points. They are instead seeking out food and mates wherever they may be.
鈥淭hey're moving out of an area of exhausted resources,鈥� Quinn said, 鈥渟o the movement can be multi-directional.鈥�
While Quinn says the number of snout butterflies in Central Texas this year has been 鈥渨onderful to see,鈥� it doesn鈥檛 hold a candle to some massive emergences in the past.
鈥淭here鈥檚 records of them being so abundant that they cause streetlights to come on during the day,鈥� he said. 鈥淪o, we're not seeing anything like that right now.鈥�
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