This blog provides an informal forum for terrestrial invertebrate watchers to post recent sightings of interesting observations in the southern Vancouver Island region. Please send your sightings by email to Jeremy Tatum (tatumjb352@gmail.com). Be sure to include your name, phone number, the species name (common or scientific) of the invertebrate you saw, location, date, and number of individuals. If you have a photograph you are willing to share, please send it along. Click on the title above for an index of past sightings.The index is updated most days.

December 10

2020 December 10

 

   Winter is fast approaching, yet there are still lots of invertebrates around, and even a butterfly is not impossible.  Ron Flower saw two Honey Bees and a bumble bee (probably Bombus vosnesenskii) at Swan Lake on Sunday, and Ian Cooper is finding an amazing array of creatures in Colquitz Creek Park:

Fourteen-spotted Ladybird Calvia quatuordecimguttata (Col.: Coccinellidae)  Ian Cooper


Sphenophorus sp. (Col.: Curculionidae)  Ian Cooper

   Thanks to Scott Gilmore for the identification of this beetle.  Apparently they are popularly (but not on this site!) called “billbugs”.

Elongate-bodied springtail Tomocerus sp. (Collembola – Entomobryomorpha – Tomoceridae)

 Ian Cooper

Dark-bodied Glass Snail Oxychilus draparnaudi (Pul.: Daubebariidae)  Ian Cooper


Lauria cylindracea (Pul.: Lauriidae)  Ian Cooper

   Yesterday, Jochen Möhr wrote from Metchosin:  This morning, the abundance of Operophtera continues.  There were 25 critters on the wall.  I would boldly call 21 of them O. brumata, and at least two occidentalis, and two look like in between.

 

Here are our best attempts at identification of seven of them:


Operophtera occidentalis (Lep.: Geometridae)  Jochem Möhr


Operophtera (maybe occidentalis) (Lep.: Geometridae)  Jochen Möhr


Operophtera occidentalis (Lep.: Geometridae)  Jochen Möhr


Operophtera occidentalis (Lep.: Geometridae)  Jochen Möhr


Operophtera (maybe occidentalis) (Lep.: Geometridae)  Jochen Möhr

 


Operophtera brumata (Lep.: Geometridae)  Jochen Möhr


Operophtera brumata (Lep.: Geometridae)  Jochen Möhr