2022 July 4

    We have three fairly common medium-sized white moths locally: Hyphantria cunea, Leucoma salicis and Spilosoma virginica.  So, which is the one shown below, found at UVic today?

Leucoma salicis (Lep.: Erebidae – Lymantriinae)  Jeremy Tatum.

For Hyphantria cunea, see June 20.  For Spilosoma virginica, see May 27.

   Mike Yip writes: 

  Mark Wynja and I did two Canada Day surveys. On July 1 we spent 4 sunny hours on Northwest Bay logging road. Except for numerous Lorquin’s Admirals it was very quiet with a few Western Blue Azures, Pale Tiger Swallowtails and Western Tiger Swallowtails and singles of Hoary Comma, Green Comma and Dun Skipper. 

  On July 2 we spent 5 intermittently sunny hours (30% of the time it clouded over) on Cameron and Pass Main (Mount Cokely Road). The road to the top was open, but it was still early spring conditions with snow on the mountain, not many wildflowers, and only 15° C at the upper levels.  We managed to scrounge up a disappointing 10 species. There were several Western Meadow Fritillaries,  Green Commas, Silvery Blues, Persius Duskywings, Pale Tiger Swallowtails, Western Tiger Swallowtails, and Sara Orangetips; singles of Cedar Hairstreak and Mourning Cloak; and many Mylitta Crescents. 

  I hadn’t been up Cokely for a couple of years and didn’t recognize much of the area on the drive in. What used to be a well-forested area has been nuked and looks more like a barren moonscape dotted with huge teepees of usable wood (fence posts, pellets, etc) soon to be torched during slash burning.

Female Sara Orangetip Anthocharis sara (Lep.: Pieridae)  Mike Yip

Male Sara Orangetip Anthocharis sara (Lep.: Pieridae)  Mike Yip

Persius Duskywing Erynnis persius (Lep.: Hesperiidae)  Mike Yip

Male Dun Skipper Euphyes vestris  (Lep.: Hesperiidae)   Mike Yip

Male Dun Skipper Euphyes vestris (Lep.: Hesperiidae)  Mike Yip

Male Mylitta Crescent Phyciodes mylitta (Lep.: Nymphalidae)  Mike Yip

Female Mylitta Crescent  Phyciodes mylitta (Lep.: Nymphalidae)   Mike Yip

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

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

Green Comma Polygonia faunus  (Lep.: Nymphalidae)   Mike Yip

2022 July 3 morning

 Butterfly Walk Cancelled

 Because of the cloudy, cool, and possibly later, rainy weather, few butterflies are likely to be flying today.  Consequently the Butterfly Walk scheduled for today at 1:00 pm is cancelled.

   Rosemary Jorna writes:  We hiked up the Matterhorn in Shirley yesterday and saw quite a few butterflies –  a Western Pine Elfin, a  couple of Clodius Parnassians  and  three  Lorquin’s Admirals  behind the summit. We saw both Western  and Pale Tiger Swallowtails  at various points along the hike but they were not in their usual numbers.  I was not able to catch a photo of any butterfly but a female Dimorphic Flower Longhorn Beetle Anastrangalia laetifica posed nicely for me.

Anastrangalia laetifica (Col.: Cerambycidae)  Rosemary Jorna

2022 July 2 morning

 July 3 Butterfly Walk

   Because of the uncertain weather forecast for tomorrow, please check this Website tomorrow morning (Sunday) to see whether the Butterfly Walk scheduled for 1:00 p.m. is still on or whether it is cancelled.

  Jeremy Tatum sends a photograph of Enargia infumata reared from a caterpillar, shown on the May 31 entry on this site, found on Populus at Rithet’s Bog. The adult emerged today.

Enargia infumata (Lep.: Noctuidae)  Jeremy Tatum

2022 July 1

    Jeremy Tatum writes:  Not much news by 5:00 pm on Canada Day, although there was a Painted Lady on the Mount Tolmie reservoir at 4:00 pm, and the Philadelphus shrub by the entrance was attracting Western and Pale Tiger Swallowtails.  I didn’t see any other species there.

2022 June 30 afternoon

    Jeremy Tatum writes: Some viewers have noted that moths have been rather scarce this year compared with other recent years.  I hope the one shown below may compensate to some extent.  Reared from a caterpillar found on Willowherb in the Martindale Valley in July last year, the adult moth emerged today.

Bedstraw Hawk Moth Hyles gallii  (Lep.: Sphingidae)  Jeremy Tatum

  The spellings gallii and galii are to be found in the literature.  Which is correct?  The name comes from the plants known as bedstraws Galium sp., which is one of the larval foodplants.  Therefore, it ought to be galii, oughtn’t it?  The species was first described and distinguished from the Elephant and Spurge Hawk Moths nearly 250 years ago in an obscure and long-defunct German journal. The author, named von Rottenburg, for some reason that is not at all apparent, spelled it, wrongly, gallii.  The Rule is that we must use the spelling used by the author in the original description of the species, even if the author spelled it “wrongly”.  By adhering to this Rule we can be sure that the species that we are talking about is the same species as the one originally described by the author.  Thus, although we could say that the “correct” spelling is galii, the spelling we must use is gallii.

Another wrinkle to this is that the original author’s name is often (usually) spelled Rottemburg.  However, the spelling in the original publication was Rottenburg.

I thank:  Rob Cannings  for finding  the reference (journal and year) of the original publication;  Ryan Glenn of UVic’s McPherson Library for – amazingly – actually finding the 1775 publication; and Jochen Möhr for translating it from German.

Rosemary Jorna writes from Kemp Lake that the moth (which has a very long name) shown below showed up in her garage this afternoon.

Pseudothyatira cymatophoroides (Lep.: Drepanidae – Thyatirinae)  Rosemary Jorna