I don' have a photo or even a good description of this butterfly since I saw it many years ago in Charlotte. What I remember was it had unusual brown or black markings on its wingtips that mimicked its body, so when the wings were folded it looked like its body was on the other side of where it really was. The way it shuffled its wings while at rest added to the illusion. It seemed like a ploy to make predators think that it would fly in the opposite direction if startled. Does this sound familiar?
without a photo and so many butterflies with similar descriptions I suggest you wander through the http://www.butterfliesandmoths.org/checklists website to see if you can find it.
Actually I don't need to know the name of this exact butterfly, if there are other butterflies that exhibit this same decoy strategy. You say there's a lot of them? Any particular family or habitat where they tend to be found?
Some butterflies have fake eyes on wing tips for the same reason. Is this what you are talking about ? You might put a short description in google and see what comes up.
By lots of them I meant your description could apply to more than just one. And without knowing exactly which butterfly you saw, there is no way to know it's habits or habitats. Do a google.com search for Butterflies of North Carolina and check out photos you find there.
I didn't find the one I saw in NC, but I did eventually locate an example of a butterfly with a "false head", which is what I was looking for. http://www.planetstillalive.com/zebra-h ... onia-peru/
