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.

June 23 morning

2019 June 23

 

   Mike Yip saw 15 species of butterfly on Mount Cokely yesterday, including these two little beauties:

 

Arctic (also known as Chequered) Skipper Carterocephalus palaemon (Lep.: Hesperiidae)

Mike Yip

 

Mariposa Copper Lycaena mariposa (Lep.: Lycaenidae)  Mike Yip

 

   Jeremy Tatum reports that he saw the recently deserted nests of about a dozen Painted Lady caterpillars along Millstream Road yesterday.   Single caterpillars of the Painted Lady make an easily-recognizable silk nest soiled with frass on thistles; when they are ready to pupate, they wander off.  That’s what I mean by “recently deserted nests” – the caterpillars were presumably OK and have now pupated somewhere.

 

   Gordon Hart saw a Grey Hairstreak, missing one tail, in his Highlands garden yesterday,  and one each of Pale Tiger Swallowtail, Lorquin’s Admiral, Western Tiger Swallowtail , and Cabbage White.

 

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

 

   Val George sends a photo of a Chalk-fronted Corporal  Ladona julia  taken at Durrance Lake yesterday, June 22.

 

Chalk-fronted Corporal Ladona julia (Odo.: Libellulidae)  Val George

 

      Jochen Möhr’s moths in Metchosin this morning:

 

Enypia packardata 2
Lacinipolia strigicollis 2
Macaria adonis 1
Nadata gibbosa 1

 

 


Lacinipolia strigicollis (Lep.: Noctuidae)  Jochen Möhr

 

 


Macaria adonis (Lep.: Geometridae)  Jochen Möhr