2015 May 05

   Gordon Hart writes:  May 02 was a good day for invertebrates as well as birds.  I don’t mean to inundate you [Keep inundating! – Jeremy] with pictures but I have a few I wanted to show you. I saw a very worn comma, I think P. faunus, and nearby a lighter more golden satyrus, I think. Also, a nice Cedar Hairstreak on an apple blossom. All these were at home, but up on Observatory Hill, I saw a female Propertius Duskywing, and also a first for this year, a female Spiny Baskettail.  At home, we also saw our first Pale Swallowtail of the year, as well as the usual spring butterflies.

Spiny Baskettail Epitheca spinigera (Odo.: Corduliidae) Gordon Hart

   Jeremy Tatum sends photos of a moth and a bug from his Saanich apartment, May 4.  Thanks to Libby Avis for identifying the moth, and to Scott Gilmore for identifying the bug.  The moth is Berhensia conchiformis, which I completely failed to recognize. This moth usually exhibits brilliant, shiny green scintillations (see, for example, Jeremy Gatten’s photograph in the March 22 posting). In spite of the lack of this shiny colour, Libby spotted the pattern, which fits perfectly, and she writes:  We see them occasionally with the green and yellow iridescence worn off, which I think is what may have happened here.  Libby adds: Still pretty slow here (Port Alberni) at the light, but we did get a Spodolepis danbyi last night (May 3). We don’t see them very often and it’s the first this year.

   The bug, writes Scott Gilmore, is a species of rough stink-bug, Brochymena sp.  Scott writes that there are two species here, and he can’t be sure from the photo which of the two it is.

Brochymena sp.  (Hem.: Pentatomidae)  Jeremy Tatum

Spodolepis danbyi (Lep.: Geometridae)  Libby Avis

   Scott Gilmore writes:  I have attached a picture of a mating pair of Mecinus pyraster(Curculionidae), a European native that seems abundant this year on stems of Plantago where the young develop. 

  Also there are pictures of two different species of Epuraea(Nitidulidae) that I found on the weekend.

   Corduliidae and Nitidulidae, featured in today’s posting, are Families not previously represented on this site.