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.

2021 September 14

2021 September 14

Jochen’s moths from Metchosin this morning:

1 Autographa californica

1 Eupithecia unicolor 

1 Neoalcis californiaria

1 Noctua pronuba

Autographa californica (Lep.: Noctuidae – Plusiinae)  Jochen Möhr

Eupithecia unicolor (Lep.:  Geometridae)  Jochen Möhr

Neoalcis californiaria (Lep.: Geometridae)  Jochen Möhr

   Gordon Hart writes from Highlands:  There have not been many butterflies around, but yesterday, Monday, September 13, we saw four Cabbage Whites and a Grey Hairstreak. It was sharing a clump of Yarrow with some flies  and small beetles.

 

Grey Hairstreak Strymon melinus (Lep.: Lycaenidae)  Gordon Hart

 

Grey Hairstreak Strymon melinus (Lep.: Lycaenidae)  Gordon Hart

Sharing a clump of Yarrow with a fly (Bombyliidae) and a small beetle.  Gordon Hart

Thanks to Jeremy Gatten for pointing out that the fly is not a syrphid (as incorrectly labelled in an earlier version of this posting) but a bombyliid, probably genus Villa.