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.

September 12 afternoon

2019 September 12 afternoon

 

   Jeremy Tatum writes:  I have never paid much attention to those little grass veneer moths that one sees almost everywhere in grassy fields, regarding them as both unidentifiable and uninteresting.  Jochen Möhr and Libby Avis coincidentally within a few days of each other obtained excellent photographs of these little moths, showing what interesting creatures they are.  Libby’s is identified as

Agriphila attenuata.  We haven’t as yet identified Jochen’s to species, but it is almost certainly of the same genus.

 



Agriphila attenuata (Lep.: Crambidae)  Libby Avis

 

 

 

Probably Agriphila sp. (Lep.: Crambidae)  Jochen Möhr

 

  There is a front page story in today’s Times-Colonist saying that three specimens of the Asian Giant Hornet Vespa mandarinia have been seen in Nanaimo.  They are said to vary in length from 3.5 cm to 5 cm (queens) with a wingspan of 7 mm.  Go and get a ruler and see what these numbers really mean!