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 23

2020 December 23

 

   Gordon Hart writes: Yesterday, Tuesday, December 22, while parts of Greater Victoria were covered in ice and snow, we walked along the snow-free Songhees walkway bordering the Inner Harbour, and found bees and flies enjoying winter-blooming Mahonia and other flowers. I have attached photos of a Bombus vosnesenskii (Yellow-faced Bee) and a fly species (House Fly?).

 


Bombus vosnesenskii (Hym.: Apidae) Gordon Hart

 

      Jeremy Tatum writes:   I’m pretty sure that the fly is a muscine, but not certain that it is Musca domestica. The venation of the fly below is very similar to that of M. domestica, but M. domestica usually has a few longitudinal stripes on the thorax, which I don’t see on this one.  If any viewer can go further, please let us know.

 

Dip.:  Muscidae – Muscinae        Gordon Hart