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.

May 22 morning

2020 May 22 morning

 

   Jeremy Tatum writes:  There are quite a few caterpillars of Satyr Comma along Lochside Drive north of Blenkinsop Lake.  I hope this is a sign that the numbers of these butterflies are coming back after a few lean years.  One just hopes that Saanich will not cut or spray the verges.

 

Satyr Comma Polygonia satyrus (Lep.: Nymphalidae)  Jeremy Tatum

    Jeff Gaskin writes:  Yesterday morning,  May 21,  I found 32 Ringlets in their usual location, Layritz Park.

 

Rosemary Jorna writes:  We were back on the Whiffin Spit today.  We saw one  Seven-spotted Lady Beetle  but the real surprise was two live Pacific Sideband Snails and one empty shell in different  locations.   I associate these snails with the forest,  but these three were under the vegetation well into the gravelly, grassy harbour side  of the trail. This is a harsh exposed environment.  The second live snail was much smaller,  and it was raining too hard to photograph.


Coccinella septempunctata (Col.: Coccinellidae)  Rosemary Jorna


Monadenia fidelis (Pul.: Bradybaenidae) Rosemary Jorna

Jochen Möhr’s moths from Metchosin yesterday and today:

 

May 21

1 Egira rubrica

2 Eupithecia spp.

1 Eupithecia cretaceata

1 Melanolophia imitata

3 Tyria jacobaeae

1 Venusia obsoleta/pearsalli

1 Xanthorhoe defensaria

 

May 22

1 Apamea cinefacta

1 Coryphista meadii

1 Eupithecia sp.

1 Lacinipolia cuneata/pensilis

1 Melanolophia imitata

4 Tyria jacobaeae

1 Xanthorhoe defensaria

 


Lacinipolia cuneata/pensilis (Lep.: Noctuidae)  Jochen Möhr


Apamea cinefacta (Lep.: Noctuidae)  Jochen Möhr

 

 

 

 

May 21 morning

2020 May 21 morning

 

  Spelling:   A sharp-eyed viewer pointed out that on the May 18 morning Invert Alert, I had spelled fourteen as quattuordecim in the text and as quatuordecim in the label to the beetle.  I am always grateful to viewers who let me know of possible mistakes of any sort, and I encourage viewers to continue to do so.  Adam Taylor set this site up for the VNHS so that it is very easy for me to correct mistakes. But in this case my two spellings of fourteen were intentional.  In the version of Latin that I was taught, four was quattuor.  However, when it comes to the spelling of scientific names, the spelling we are supposed to use is the spelling that was used in the original formal scientific description of the organism, whether the author used the “correct” spelling or not.  I admit to not having looked up the original description of the beetle in question, but presumably, rightly or wrongly, it was quatuor there.  There are a number of similar examples.  For example, we have a wasp Vespa pensylvanica.  Another spelling difficulty I have to watch out for is the beetle Coccinella septempunctata and the moth Adela septentrionella.  [I have since learned that septem is the number 7, while septentrio is an adjective meaning “northern”.]

 

   Jody Wells writes yesterday from Saanichton (Cordova) Spit:  Not sure if I have seen this handsome little lad before.    Jody is right – it is a “lad” – i.e. a male,  Purplish Copper:

 

Male Purplish Copper Lycaena helloides (Lep.: Lycaenidae)  Jody Wells

 

 

      Val George writes:  Yesterday, May 20, I walked the railway track at Cowichan Station to look for Margined Whites but saw none.  In fact, despite good conditions for butterflies, the only species there were a few Cabbage Whites and Western Spring Azures, and two Satyr Commas.

 

Satyr Comma Polygonia satyrus (Lep.: Nymphalidae)  Val George

   Rosemary Jorna writes:  There were eight or more Seven-spotted Lady Beetles Coccinella septempunctata on a wild black gooseberry bush on the Whiffin Spit yesterday morning.   I was surprised at the difference in size between these two.


Coccinella septempunctata (Lep.: Coccinellidae)  Rosemary Jorna

 

 

 

 

 

May 20

2020 May 20

 

   Jeremy Tatum  writes:   I have forwarded to Invert Alert a notice I had received about eButterfly.  If any of you are computer-oriented, we need someone to enter our butterfly observations to eButterfly.   Sonja Voicescu did it last year, and would be glad to help ease someone into doing it.  Let me know if you are interested.

 

    Jeremy Tatum writes:  Yesterday at 6:00 pm there were five Painted Ladies and a California Tortoiseshell  on the reservoir or around the Jeffery Pine on Mount Tolmie.  Although all of them seemed to be very worn, they could all fly strongly and chase each other vigorously.

 

  Here is a Paraseptis adnixa (formerly Aseptis adnixa), reared from caterpillar on Indian Plum and released near Blenkinsop Lake:

 


Paraseptis adnixa (Lep.: Noctuidae)  Jeremy Tatum

 

   And this one was reared from a caterpillar on oak, and it was released today in an oak grove at Swan Lake:

 

Rough Prominent Nadata gibbosa (Lep.: Notodontidae)  Jeremy Tatum

 

 

 

   Val George writes:  Yesterday afternoon, May 19, I did the May butterfly count for my area, Mount Douglas and the surrounding area.  The tally was:  25 Cabbage White, 9 Painted Lady, 6 Western Spring Azure, 2 Western Tiger Swallowtail, and one each of Pale Swallowtail, Anise Swallowtail, Mourning Cloak.

 

   Mike Yip writes from Nanoose:  Lupines are blooming along the highway and so are the Silvery Blues.

 

Silvery Blue Glaucopsyche lygdamus (Lep.: Lycaenidae)  Mike Yip

 

Silvery Blue Glaucopsyche lygdamus (Lep.: Lycaenidae)  Mike Yip

 

 

We need someone to do this for us! Jeremy

From: Vermont Center for Ecostudies <info@vtecostudies.org&gt;
Sent: May 20, 2020 2:31 PM
To: Jeremy Tatum
Subject: A New eButterfly Takes Flight

 

Check out new and improved eButterfly!

A New eButterfly Takes Flight
Canadian Tiger Swallowtail (Papilio canadensis). K.P. McFarland
Dear eButterfly user, 
 
We hope you are having a great spring butterfly season so far. Spring was slow to arrive for us this year here in the north where team eButterfly lives, but with Pine Elfins and Canadian Tiger Swallowtails on the wing now, we’re excited to get outdoors and eButterfly! 
 
We wanted to take this opportunity to share with all of the eButterfly users like you that we’ve just completed an exciting and ambitious expansion of e-Butterfly.org. We’ve expanded and added new tools to help you track your observations from Central America and the Caribbean Islands to the far reaches of the Arctic.
 
eButterfly now covers over 40 countries and more than 3,000 species, many of them rarely studied, the e-Butterfly.org site allows anyone to report, store, organize and view vast amounts of data on butterfly distribution and diversity across the region. e-Butterfly.org displays lists, photos and real-time maps of butterflies from its ever-growing reservoir of nearly 400,000 butterfly observations shared by nearly 8,000 observers like you.

If you have not visited eButterfly lately, we invite you to come back and experience the new social media-inspired features we’ve added to facilitate sharing and communication between users to make it a better experience for you and build a more connected and engaged eButterfly community. 
 
Here’s a few of our favorite new tools and improvements:
 
  • A completely new design and user interface that is also smartphone and tablet compatible.
  • Are you curious about a sighting or think an observation photograph is particularly fascinating? eButterfly now allows you to publicly comment on a checklist or observation, or send a private message to another user within eButterfly. Asking each other questions and discussing sightings live on eButterfly allows users to share and learn like never before.
  • Now everyone can help verify butterfly records! We’ve created a more efficient and fun, crowd-sourced verification system for eButterfly. Borrowing from the experience of our friends at iNaturalist, we’ve implemented a whole new way for everyone to contribute. Virtual butterfly watching is almost as fun as the real thing!
  • Perhaps you watch and count butterflies with a group of friends. Checklists can be shared with other users in the group so that only one person in the party needs to enter the data. After it is shared you can even customize the checklist to what you actually observed, keeping your life lists in perfect order.
  • Do you like to track what you find in your butterfly garden or another favorite location? Now you can track your all-time or annual yard lists (or any area you choose) automatically.

Getting Started with eButterfly
Check out our Help pages that will quickly get you started on using eButterfly. There’s a Quick Start Guide that takes you through each step when entering a butterfly checklist. Learn about our new crowd-sourced data vetting system and our identification tool and how you can quickly get started in helping to verify eButterfly data too. And learn how eButterfly helps you track your life, year, and month lists for countries, states and provinces, and even your favorite locations automatically!
Join an Upcoming eButterfly Webinar and Learn Even More
We invite you to join us for one of our webinars that will demonstrate how to use eButterfly and answer any of your questions. 
Thursday, May 21 at 6 PM Eastern Time 
Join Zoom Meeting
Meeting ID: 950 8445 7892 Password: 491565
Tuesday, May 26 at 6 PM Eastern Time
Join Zoom Meeting
Meeting ID: 924 4902 8392 Password: 576274
Clear-winged Mimic-White (Dismorphia theucharila) from Panama. Photo Max Larrivée
Help Us Build Big Butterfly Data for Science and Conservation
Similar to eBird, the ‘complete checklist‘ approach of eButterfly significantly increases the scientific value of each observation you share. Complete checklists allow you to collect abundance and information on co-occurring species while tallying effort (time and distance traveled), all at high spatial and temporal resolutions.
 
When combined and analyzed, these data enable us to build next-generation species distribution models that inform scientists on the movements of species range boundaries and areas of abundance across the landscape at an astounding level of temporal and spatial detail. It will help greatly with population monitoring and conservation decisions across the hemisphere. But we can’t do all of this without your help in gathering big butterfly data. 
eButterfly has already been a source of discovery for several new species expanding their ranges far beyond what was previously known. From first records for the continent, like the Perched Saliana butterfly photographed and shared on eButterfly at Estero Llano Grande State Park in Weslaco, Texas in 2016, to the first Quebec record for Long-tailed Skipper photographed by a visitor right in the Insectarium gardens in 2016–there are many new state and provincial species discovered by eButterfly users in North America. Expanding to Central America and the Caribbean will really accelerate the rate of new discoveries in those countries where there’s been a lack of reporting.
 
A peer-reviewed study by researchers at the University of Ottawa compared eButterfly data to professionally-collected observations to measure the extent of new distributional and regional species richness information that opportunistic citizen science generates. eButterfly contributed new distributional information for ~80% of butterfly species, with volunteers detecting species significantly earlier each year than professionals.
 
“This really speaks to the ability and power of eButterfly’s citizen science approach,” said lead author Peter Soroye.
 
Every time butterfly watchers raise binoculars and cameras to record a butterfly sighting, they collect important data. Recording the number, date, and location of each and every butterfly, no matter how common or rare, may seem trivial, even repetitive— but this detailed information can be invaluable to science and conservation. Butterflies act as early warning signals for habitat degradation, climate change, and other ecological forces. Citizen science programs like eButterfly allow volunteers to submit checklists from anywhere, and can quickly amass large volumes of both historic and current observations. 
 
eButterfly is the tool for any butterfly enthusiast. You don’t have to be an expert to make a difference. Everyone can play a part, and it couldn’t be easier. Just log into eButterfly and contribute your butterfly discoveries!
 
Have a great butterfly watching year!
 
Team eButterfly
Vermont Center for Ecostudies | PO Box 420, Norwich, VT 05055
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May 19 evening

2020 May 19 evening

 

   Mark Wynja writes from Parksville:  On May 26, 2019, I saw a Dreamy Duskywing land along the side of the logging road to Rhododendron Lake. After a very brief observation (no photo), it flew away and was not seen again. This road is reached on the weekends via the NW Bay Logging Road.  I looked for this species numerous times last year and again this year. Then late yesterday (May 18th) I found at least two individuals and was able finally to get photos.

 

 

Dreamy Duskywing Erynnis icelus (Lep.: Hesperiidae)  Mark Wynja

Dreamy Duskywing Erynnis icelus (Lep.: Hesperiidae)  Mark Wynja

   Mark’s next photograph (writes Jeremy Tatum) shows that, like the Propertius Duskywing, many of the pale spots on the wings of these skippers are translucent.  (Photographers of  Propertius Duskywing – see if you can get a photo like this, from underneath, showing the translucent spots,)  The exact distribution of these translucent spots helps in the identification of several Erynnis species.  Here there are none in the basal half to two-thirds of each wing.  This is the first report of Erynnis icelus in this Invertebrate Alert site.  Although at first glance it looks somewhat similar to E. propertius, it is a much smaller butterfly.

Dreamy Duskywing Erynnis icelus (Lep.: Hesperiidae)  Mark Wynja

   Judy Spearing writes:  I Just found four of these caterpillars by my large Red Elderberry shrub. Any
idea of what these moths are? One fell out of the elderberry and landed on me while I was taking photos.

 

Jeremy Tatum replies:  It is the caterpillar of the Elder Moth Zotheca tranquilla.

 

Elder Moth Zotheca tranquilla (Lep.: Noctuidae)

Judy Spearing

   Jeremy Tatum writes:  Here is a cocoon of a plutellid moth, on an oak leaf from Christmas Hill.  We don’t (yet) know the species.

 

Plutellid cocoon (Lep.: Plutellidae)  Jeremy Tatum

   Jeremy Tatum writes: I visited the Silvery Blue colony at the Colwood cut-off from the Trans-Canada Highway this afternoon.  Almost every lupin head bore several  (even a dozen or more) ova.  I saw about half-a-dozen adult butterflies.

 

Egg of Silvery Blue Glaucopsyche lygdamus (Lep.: Lycaenidae)  Jeremy Tatum