INVERTEBRATE ALERT
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.

2022 December 10

2022 December 10

 

   Ian Cooper gives us another collection of miscellaneous invertebrate creatures from Colquitz River Park and the Galloping Goose Trail last night.  Ian and I (writes Jeremy Tatum) have worked hard on the identifications, and while we cannot guarantee them 100 percent, we think we are probably pretty accurate as far as we can go.

 

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Crane Fly or Winter Gnat (Dip.:  Tipulidae or Trichoceridae)

Ian Cooper

Same animal below

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Crane Fly or Winter Gnat (Dip.:  Tipulidae or Trichoceridae)

  Ian Cooper

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Dark-winged Fungus Gnat (Dip.: Sciaridae)  Ian Cooper

   Harvestmen usually have four pairs of legs.  The one below has presumably had an accident, since it has only three pairs.  The missing pair is probably the second pair,
which, in an uninjured animal, is longer than the other pairs.  Hence the short-legged appearance of this harvestman.

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Harvestman (Opiliones)  Ian Cooper

   The sharp-eyed will spot a tiny animal near the end of one of the legs of the spider below.  This is probably a springtail (Collembola).

 

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Male linyphiid spider  (Ara.: Linyphiidae)  Ian Cooper

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Male linyphiid spider  (Ara.: Linyphiidae)  Ian Cooper

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Running Crab Spider (Ara.: Philodromidae)  Ian Cooper

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Flat-backed Millepede Scytonotus sp.  (Polydesmida: Polydesmidae)

Ian Cooper