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.

October 16

2016 October 26

 

   Erratum.  I wonder if any viewer spotted the mistake in the October 12 posting, in which I had given the Order in the caption to Liam Singh’s springtail as “Col.” It certainly isn’t a beetle!   I have now corrected it by writing the Order in full:  Collembola.  I also have to be careful with firebrats and thrips, both of which are in Orders beginning with the same three letters: Thy.   If viewers do spot any mistakes from time to time, please do let me know.  I certainly shan’t be in the least offended, and indeed I am eager for mistakes to be found and corrected.

 

   Annie Pang writes to say that she saw several Cabbage Whites yesterday (October 25), in Gorge Park and around her home.  Please all keep a look out for them and see how late in the year they may fly.  We are in for a rainy spell, so maybe Annie’s will be the last of the year. 

 

  Val George sends a photograph of a Large Yellow Underwing from the leaf litter at Swan Lake yesterday.  This species can usually be recognized by the double dark dot near the apex of the forewing.  This one seems to have just a single dot, but that’s good enough!

 

Large Yellow Underwing Noctua pronuba (Lep.: Noctuidae)  Val George

 

   Jeremy Tatum writes that the micro moth below emerged recently from a pupa found in a dogwood leaf at Swan Lake.  Thanks to Eric LaGasa who identifies it as probably Acleris cornana.

   

Acleris cornana (Lep.: Tortricidae)    Jeremy Tatum

 

 

  Jody Wells sends a photograph of an ichneumonid from Swan Lake in August.  A bit late for an “alert”, but we thought we’d post it anyway because of its rather long antennae. 

 

Ichneumonid wasp  (Hym.: Inchneumonidae)  Jody Wells

October 25

2016 October 25

 

   Rosemary Jorna has a sad tale to tell:  “We were hiking in the hills on the east side of the Sooke River yesterday and had stopped for lunch when this wasp circled round and just right into a cup of hot tea. It did not survive.”

 

  Thank you to Sean McCann anyway for identifying the victim as Dolichovespula arenaria.  Sean also kindly identified wasps appearing on this site for the dates September 21 and 22.  Scroll to these dates to see them.

 

Dolichovespula arenaria (Hym.: Vespidae)  Rosemary Jorna

 


Dolichovespula arenaria (Hym.: Vespidae)  Rosemary Jorna

 

 

   Cheryl Hoyle sends a photograph of a spider from Metchosin, October 24.  Thank you, Robb Bennett, for the identification as a female Cybaeus, almost certainly C. signifer.

Jeremy Tatum writes that he mentioned to Robb that he hadn’t heard of this genus – perhaps not the most diplomatic of admissions! Robb writes:  They are quite common forest floor spiders with about 50 or more species found in western North America.  Signifer is the largest of several species found in our neck of the woods.  We put a Cybaeus male on the cover of the Journal of the Entomological Society of BC a number of years back.  The genus and its family (Cybaeidae) have been the main subject of my taxonomic research for years, starting with my PhD.

 

 

 

 

Cybaeus signifer (Ara.: Cybaeidae)   Cheryl Hoyle

October 24

2016 October 24

 

   Jeff Gaskin writes:  Yesterday, October 23, I saw two Cabbage Whites on Tillicum Road. There was one on Tillicum Road at Carey Road and the other one was on Tillicum Road at the Island Highway.  And today, October 24, Devon Parker saw two on the hillside along Latoria Road.

 

Jeremy Tatum writes:  Bill Savale and I visited the Kinsol trestle yesterday (October 23).  The river below was in full flood and the scenery quite spectacular, but this note, of course, concerns invertebrates seen there.  The fence on either side of the bridge has a handrail made of a shiny aluminium tube running the full length of the bridge.  A shiny aluminium tube sounds an unlikely habitat on which to find anything of natural history interest, but in fact there was a fantastic variety of creatures there – beetles, bugs, stoneflies, large colourful globose springtails, mites, etc. I am sure the large harvestman we saw was not the usual Phalangium opilio, but was a more impressive species. There was a huge variety (possibly about 15 species – we lost count) of spiders, nearly all of them unfamiliar to us, and not the usual run of spiders that are commonly seen on this site.  They ranged in size from tiny ones barely visible to our aged eyes to huge, frightening ones. One of the commonest was a species of Cyclosa, with its odd-shaped abdomen and its beautiful web with stabilimentum.  Also of great interest – there were lots of things that looked like tiny (5 mm) fragments of general detritus on the aluminium tube.  At first that’s just what we thought they were – until we noticed that some of them moved slightly, seemingly of their own volition.  On looking at them closely, we saw that each of them was a tiny tube, and from time to time a small head and a pair of legs poked out.  It seems hardly credible, but I think they may have been caddisfly larvae.  Caddisfly larvae are, of course, familiar objects under water in ponds, but I have never heard of one out of water, let alone dozens of them on the shiny surface of an aluminium tube, nowhere near water other than the raging river hundreds of feet below.  Quite extraordinary!

 

Also found near the bridge was a mushroom (Bill will know which species), and, in the spaces between the gills was a horde of mites with exceptionally long legs – especially the front pair.  Thanks to Dr Heather Proctor for identifying these as members of the family Eupodidae.

 

Libby Avis sends photographs of two caterpillars found on alder on a logging road near the Alberni Inlet on October 22nd.  One is the Peppered Moth Biston betularia  (of industrial melanism fame).  The other is a hooktip moth Drepana sp.  Jeremy Tatum writes that he can’t be totally certain whether it is Drepana arcuata or Drepana bilineata, but he’d put his money (maybe not a lot of it) on the latter.

 

Peppered Moth Biston betularia (Lep.: Geometridae) Libby Avis

 

Peppered Moth Biston betularia (Lep.: Geometridae) Libby Avis

 

Drepana sp. (Lep.: Drepanidae)  Libby Avis


Drepana sp. (Lep.: Drepanidae)  Libby Avis

 

 

Liam Singh sends a spectacular photograph of a jumping spider Phidippus sp. from his yard.  Although it has no red, it is believed that this is probably a young Phidippus johnsoni

 

Jumping spider Phidippus (probably johnsoni)  (Ara.: Salticidae)  Liam Singh

 

October 20

2016 October 20

 

   Jeremy Tatum writes:  It’s Winter Moth season again.  Here is my first of the season – at my Saanich apartment this morning.

 

Winter Moth Operophtera brumata (Lep.: Geometridae)  Jeremy Tatum

 

October 18

2016 October 18

  

   Jeremy Tatum writes:  Did I say that the Invert Alert season is almost over?  Our contributors are proving me wrong, with another interesting batch of creatures.

 

   Twice recently (October 11 and 17) we have had photographs of bark lice.  Thanks to Dr E. Mockford (University of Illinois) for identifying these for us – and thanks to Dr Rob Cannings for putting me in touch with Dr Mockford.

 

   Rosemary Jorna writes:  This weather is bringing out the snails. I met this small Pacific Sideband Snail Monadenia fidelis  near the Charters River Salmon Interpretative Centre off Sooke River Road.  There should be Vertigo Snails on their Big Leaf Maples, I’ll have to look but we were there to see the newly arrived Salmon. It is a really good viewing spot. What a wonderful gift Dr Joyce Clearihue gave to the community when she bought that land for the CRD, which made the Centre possible.

 

Pacific Sideband Snail Monadenia fidelis (Pul.: Bradybaenidae)  Rosemary Jorna

 

 

   Libby Avis sends photographs of two caterpillars from Cameron Lake, October 12.  The first looks quite like the Habrosyne scripta caterpillar shown on September 21, except that the white spots (mimcry of tachinid eggs?) are much lower down on the abdomen – they are usually on the thorax of H. scripta.  We suspect that Libby’s caterpillar may actually be Pseudothyatira cymatophoroides.

 

 

Pseudothyatira cymatophoroides (Lep.: Drepanidae – Thyatirinae)  Libby Avis

 

Pseudothyatira cymatophoroides (Lep.: Drepanidae – Thyatirinae)  Libby Avis

 

 

Pseudothyatira cymatophoroides (Lep.: Drepanidae – Thyatirinae)  Libby Avis

 

  Her second caterpillar has the black diamonds on the back which seem to be characterstic of Polia nimbosa.

 Polia nimbosa (Lep.: Noctuidae)   Libby Avis

 

Polia nimbosa (Lep.: Noctuidae)   Libby Avis

 

Polia nimbosa (Lep.: Noctuidae)   Libby Avis