July 5 morning

  Reminder: Monthly Butterfly Walk on Sunday, 1:00 pm, Mount Tolmie.  A formal notice will be posted on the next Invert Alert posting – probably this afternoon or evening.

   Jeremy Tatum writes:   On Wednesday evening, July 3, at 6:30 pm, I saw three Painted Ladies and one West Coast Lady at the top of Mount Douglas.  Sorry, I forgot to post this earlier, though there’s probably a good chance that the West Coast Lady is still there.  It was on the far side of the teacup. Yesterday, July 4, at 6:30 pm, I saw two Painted Ladies at the top of Mount Tolmie.

Jochen Möhr’s moths in Metchosin yesterday morning:

1 Callizzia amorata

2 Eulithis xylina

1 Homorthodes hanhami

4 Lacinipolia strigicollis

1 Lophocampa maculata

3 Nadata gibbosa

1 Sicya crocearia

1 Smerinthus cerisyi (same individual as last two days)

1 Coryphista meadii

 

Spotted Tiger Moth Lophocampa maculata (Lep.: Erebidae – Arctiinae) Jochen Möhr

Coryphista meadii (Lep.: Geometridae)  Jochen Möhr

Callizzia amorata (Lep.: Uraniidae)  Jochen Möhr

Smerinthus cerisyi (Lep.: Sphingidae)  Jochen Möhr

Smerinthus cerisyi (Lep.: Sphingidae)  Jochen Möhr

 

   Cheryl Hoyle sends pictures of two grasshoppers.  In spite of the difference in colour, they are probably both the same species.  They are not in their final instar, and this makes exact identification difficult, though Claudia Copley writes that they are in the genus Melanoplus.

 

Melanoplus sp. (Orth.: Acrididae)  Cheryl Hoyle

 

Melanoplus sp. (Orth.: Acrididae)  Cheryl Hoyle

 

   Cheryl sends pictures of a Lorquin’s Admiral and a Satyr Comma from Lochside trail by Blenkinsop Lake, July 4.  It is good to know this year that we still have some Satyr Commas around – especially from that location.

Lorquin’s Admiral Limenitis lorquini (Lep.: Nymphalidae)  Cheryl Hoyle

Satyr Comma Polygonia satyrus (Lep.: Nymphalidae)  Cheryl Hoyle

 

   Layla Munger sends a photograph of Idaea dimidiata  from the siding of a house in the Royal Oak area, June 30.

Idaea dimidiata (Lep.: Geometridae)  Layla Munger

 

   She also sends a photograph of a Malacosoma sp.  That is the adult of one of our two species of “tent caterpillar”, M. californicum and M. disstria.  It is interesting and sobering that, although the two species are so abundant and so familiar, and the caterpillars are so different, we cannot be entirely sure which of the two this is!  We need to work a bit harder on these!

Malacosoma californicum/disstria  (Lep.: Lasiocampidae) Layla Munger